Sounding the Crystal Bell
by frankannestein
Summary: Cristobel lived in Sector Seven, just a normal high school girl, until her parents betrayed her for money. And then, she met a strange group of people who were her ticket to freedom - and more.
1. Part I, Chapter 1

**Final Fantasy VII in its entirety ©****Square Enix.**

* * *

President Shinra probably never knew her father's name.

So many people worked for Shin-Ra Electric Power Company. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world, thousands here in Midgar. Each day the trains hauled Shin-Ra employees to the skyscraper in the center of the city. Her father worked on Floor 62, under Mayor Domino's assistant, a man named Hart. He was a librarian.

A few days after Cristobel's sixteenth birthday, in which he called to wish her happiness from his office, some accusations began to float around Sector Seven, whispered at her high school, gossiped in the Shin-Ra housing neighborhood, jangling into their home. The phone calls were the worst. Mom took those, her calm voice belied by the fear in her eyes. The accusations followed her father from work, hounding his footsteps like the news reporters in their big, white vans with the big, red Shin-Ra, Inc. logo pasted on their sides. _Embezzlement_. There was going to be an inquiry.

_Lies_, her mother said. Dad was unimportant. Expendable. A scapegoat. Someone was trying to cover up their own mistake by pinning it on him. It was all _lies_.

"Never doubt your father's integrity," she told Cristobel.

But when Cristobel asked what was going to happen to them, if they were really going to be forced below the plate, to live in the slums with the mud and the rats if Dad lost his job, her mother didn't answer. She just went back to the kitchen, a wet dishcloth in her hands, to wash dishes that were already clean.

In the end, integrity didn't save them. The inquiry went forward, and he was damned before it started. With the discovery of a way to manufacture mako energy, which supplied the entire planet with electricity, Shin-Ra, Inc. had also found a way to rule the world.

When the Turk showed up at their door, her father, gray-skinned, sweating, and silent, opened it and let him inside.

"It's simple, Mr. Coleridge," the young Turk said, standing there in their middle-class living room in his immaculate black suit. He had slanting, black eyes, and sleek black hair that brushed his straight shoulders. The red chakra mark on his forehead looked like a gunshot wound against his white face. Everyone had a white face in Midgar. Clear blue skies, the sun – these were things reserved for the uppermost floors of the Shin-Ra Building. She had heard that beneath the plate, there was no light at all. "You know why I'm here. You owe the President money. I've come to collect."

_He's a manikin__, _Cristobel thought, watching the meeting from behind her mother, standing in the hallway. _His face has no expression at all__._

"I can't pay," her father said. Even his voice sounded ashen. He said nothing else, nothing in his defense, nothing against the lies that had brought one of President Shinra's thugs down on them. He simply stood there, head bowed, unshaven and in yesterday's wrinkled suit.

Something flickered in the Turk's eyes then, and Cristobel felt her heart go cold. He wasn't emotionless. He was . . . bored.

The Turk reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun, and pointed it at her father. "There is more than one way to pay, Mr. Coleridge."

"Yes," said Dad.

"No!" cried Mom. She burst from the hall and ran to her husband, wet dishtowel flinging water droplets everywhere – a distraught housewife in slippers and an apron. She sobbed and pleaded with the Turk, with Dad, but neither man was listening. She was a cyclone amid unforgiving canyon walls.

Observing all this, Cristobel felt sick. What was _wrong_ with her parents? Why didn't her father fight back? Or restrain her mother's hysterics?

Had he always been such a coward?

Right then, Cristobel understood something. It wasn't just about her father losing his job. If he lost his life, she and her mother were doomed. Where would they go? How would they eat?

They would _die_ down there in the slums, alone and destitute.

_And it was all her father's fault_.

"Stop it!" she screamed, so loudly her voice hurt her throat. "Just stop it!"

"Cristobel!" her mother said shrilly.

The Turk looked directly at her.

At last, her father came to life. "Suzu, go see to her," he said, grabbing his wife's arms and pushing her toward the kitchen. "Go on, now. It'll be okay."

_How?_ Cristobel wanted to ask. _How could it possibly be okay?_ But her mother was there, wild-eyed and blotchy-faced, shooing her with the disgusting towel. Cristobel evaded her, straining to reach her father and the Turk, who were talking together. The Turk sat, without being invited, in Dad's chair, primly, the gun resting on his lap; Dad gestured as he spoke, something he always did when he had an idea. She and Mom struggled at the edge of the room, her mother admonishing her in a constant stream of noise that didn't let her hear what the two men were saying.

No longer bored, the Turk's slanted eyes slid sideways and fixed on Cristobel. Slowly, he nodded. It startled her so much that her mother finally got past her defenses and shoved her backward.

"Suzu." Dad approached them, smelling of stale alcohol. He didn't say anything else to her, but held out his hand in a mute gesture.

She took it. They held a silent conversation together, the kind they used to have when Cristobel had been very young and in trouble.

Then they looked at her.

Walked past her. Disappeared into the kitchen.

The Turk stood up, returning his gun to his jacket.

"I believe," he said calmly, "that we have reached an acceptable agreement."


	2. Part I, Chapter 2

An agreement? What was that supposed to mean?

Cristobel tripped as she turned and followed her parents into the kitchen.

They were standing there, heads together, her father talking rapidly as he rubbed Mom's back, Mom nodding. Their heads snapped up on her entrance, and then Mom quickly left.

"Cris," Dad said, but she interrupted.

"What's going on?"

"It'll be okay," he said, wiping sweat off his forehead. "Everything's fine. Your mother and I are fine."

"How can this be fine? There is a Turk in our living room," she snapped. Revulsion bubbled in her stomach as she looked at this man she called Dad. This small, weak, terrified man, squeaking in the light like a rat.

A _rat_.

The young Turk walked in behind Cristobel. "If the Inn takes her, Don Corneo will pay your debt in full, Mr. Coleridge. You will be permitted to retain your position with Shin-Ra. However, you are not permitted to leave this house until payment has reached the President. I will leave a pair of men here, to see to your needs. Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course," Dad said. "Thank you."

"What inn?" Cristobel glared at her father (_thank you_?), and then at the Turk. "Who is Don Corneo? You're not talking about _me_, are you?"

"We are," the Turk said coolly. "You should be honored, girl. You've saved your father's life."

"I've got her things here, Mr. Tseng," Mom said from the hallway, and the Turk turned.

"Mom, what the hell are you doing?" Cristobel exploded.

The Turk, Tseng, took her backpack from her mother's steady hands.

"It's just a change of clothes, dear, and some of your . . . things," Mom said, averting her eyes.

"Wait a minute." In utter disbelief, Cristobel stared at the three adults surrounding her. "You didn't. You sold me off? Are you _kidding_ me?"

Nobody answered her.

"What is this, the _Coal Ages_?" she screamed. "What about school, Dad? What about cheerleading practice? Mom, what about Matt? What are you going to tell him when I don't show up for class?"

"For God's sake, Cristobel," Mom said, slapping her hand on the table. "You aren't being shipped off to Icicle Village. You'll still be able to call."

"We should be on our way," Tseng said.

Cristobel backed into the sink. "There is no way in hell I'm going with you."

"Cristobel! Watch your mouth," her mother scolded.

"It'll be all right," Dad echoed. They stood together again, shoulder to shoulder, alienating her. As if trying on their new role as a childless couple.

"Are you insane?" she shouted. "You can't make me go!"

With that, she snatched a bowl out of the sudsy water in the sink and hurled it like a Frisbee. Her parents ducked, and the bowl shattered against the wall.

"I hate you! How could you do this to me?" A cup went next, spewing water like a sick kid on a roller coaster. "I'm your child, not an old car! I'm a person! _What's wrong with you_?"

She didn't hear the gun, but suddenly, its muzzle dug painfully into her temple. She gasped, staggering sideways.

"Don't make a scene," Tseng said. "If you're damaged, Corneo won't buy you, and your father here will have to pay with his life."

"I don't care," she said fiercely, with burning, dry eyes. She'd never been so far from crying in her life. She was so angry, she wanted the chance to hurt her parents herself. Look at them, standing there, staring at her as if they didn't know her. All they cared about was saving their own lives!

She heard a soft chuckle. The gun withdrew. Instinctively, she turned her head to see where it had gone, and then it crashed into the side of her face with enough force to send her sprawling on the wet kitchen floor. Stunned, she lay there while her brain compiled a damage report. Teeth, check. Ears, check; ringing in the right. Blood? A little in her mouth. Eyeballs? One for sure – it felt like the other had popped. But no, she was blinking, and the linoleum and Tseng's hyper-shined shoes swam into focus.

A soft click. She squinted upward. The Turk had closed his phone. Her bag still dangled from his gloved hand.

Several men in blue uniforms and masked helmets surged into the house. Tseng consigned Cristobel's backpack to one, and two more hauled her to her feet. She struggled, yelling and kicking, but Tseng clapped a hand over her mouth. His thumb ground into her cheek, where he'd hit her with the gun, and she yelped into his palm, eyes filling.

"Don't make a scene," he repeated, "or I will kill you."

Up close, his eyes were brown. She stared into them, believed him, and went limp. The soldiers marched her to the door.

"If I need anything further from you, Mr. Coleridge, I'll call."

"Yes, of course."

It was the last thing she heard her father say. No goodbye. No I love you.

No, thank you for taking the fall, Cris. You're a good girl.

Outside, one of the helmeted infantrymen put a hand on top of her head, bowing her into the waiting car. Her backpack sailed in after her. The door slammed, nearly taking her fingers off at the second knuckle, but she snatched her hand in before it could.

All the windows, and between the back seat and the front, were caged off, so she was surprised and none too pleased when the other door opened and the Turk slid in next to her. The locks, which neither of them could reach, engaged after the blue soldiers got in the front. One of them turned around, the three red lenses at the top of his masked helmet making him look like some insect from the sea.

"To the station, sir?"

Tseng, busy with his buzzing phone, murmured, "Yes."

Cristobel drew her knees into her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and buried her face, so she didn't see when the car pulled out of her driveway. She concentrated on breathing, on the swelling on one side of her face. As kids, she and her friends had told horror stories to each other, of monsters, the slums, and the Turks. The Turks, they whispered and giggled, were more than bodyguards for the President. They were scouts for potential SOLDIERs. They were kidnappers. Murderers.

It looked as if the stories were true.


	3. Part I, Chapter 3

"So _where _are you taking me?"

Tseng glanced at her, pausing in the act of dialing someone on his phone. He seemed to be a busy man, this Turk. Cristobel made herself meet his glance without flinching, or frowning, striving to be as dispassionate as he was. She wanted answers.

He pushed the dial button and put the phone to his ear, but he did reply. "The Sector Six slums."

"The _wha__ –_ uh . . ." She caught herself in time. "Somebody in the slums will be able to pay a debt my father couldn't?"

"Yes," Tseng said, but he was talking into his phone. "Five minutes."

"So, how much is a human life worth, anyway?" she grumbled.

With a graceful flick of his wrist, he closed the phone and replaced it in his pocket. "It depends on who owns the life," he said, which made her blush. He had sharp ears, too.

But she wasn't finished yet. "Who is Don Corneo?"

A shadow crossed over his face, and she stared at him, appalled. Had that been a _smile_?

"He is a . . . famous dilettante," he told her.

"Isn't that a lover of the arts? Or a superficial one?" She frowned.

It definitely was a smile. "Correct."

"I don't get it. I'm not an artist, I'm a cheerleader."

"We're here," he said, sitting forward.

Cristobel looked up at the imposing train station. The trains ran through all eight sectors, but they also spiraled down the central corridor of Midgar, to the slum stations far below the raised plates of the city. There was real dirt down there, instead of the topsoil layered above the metal plate, but grass and trees didn't grow anywhere in Midgar, not anymore. She had never taken one of the lower trains, not even on a dare from her friends; she'd heard about the kind of people that rode those trains. Stinking bums that slept in the cars, and gangs who tagged everything in sight, and terrorists. She supposed with a Turk, she'd be safe enough. After the militiamen let them out of the car, Cristobel slung her backpack over her shoulder and headed for the station entrance.

Tseng grasped her arm. "Not that way."

He dragged her at a quick trot across the car-filled parking lot, and then through a fence at the far end. There, gleaming black in the weak sunlight like a giant winged beetle, a helicopter pointed its snub nose at them. The rotors sliced the air with a steady, deafening _thwump-thwump-thwump__._

Cristobel's school uniform flapped in the generated wind, her necktie slapping her in the face, her pleated skirt threatening to expose her panties to the world. Busy holding it down, she stumbled along, trapped by the Turk's bruising grip on her arm. Her backpack banged painfully against her butt. Tseng swung her around and shoved her toward the open cargo doors – the helicopter was _huge_ – yelling over the noise, "Get in!"

Well, he was going to get an eyeful of her underwear, then. Too bad. As quickly as she could, Cristobel scrambled inside and then jumped forward. She could tell when the door closed because the sudden decrease in sound (loud, but no longer deafening) made her ears pop; Tseng pushed her roughly into a seat and took his own, slipping a pair of headphones over his head, snapping orders at the pretty blonde woman in the pilot's seat. She, too, wore an immaculate black suit.

Another Turk.

Then, the helicopter lifted, deserting Cristobel's stomach on the tarmac. She screamed. She'd never been too fond of carnival rides or elevators, anything that left the ground. Clutching her backpack, she cringed in her seat and watched the train station drop away.

Matt would love to be here right now. He was such a maniac for cars, for things that went fast and took him with them. He would flip to hear she was in a helicopter.

Matt. Oh, God. Big, tough Matt, with his short blond hair and brown eyes, his perfect, playful grin. They'd been dating since last summer. What was going to happen to them now?

Well, one thing was for sure. She couldn't let him hear about what had happened from her parents.

She snuck a peek at the Turks, but since neither one of them was paying attention to her, she yanked open the flap of her backpack and began rooting through it. No schoolbooks; that wasn't a surprise. Extra clothes, her sneakers and sweats, a cosmetics bag, shampoo and soap, her wallet – any money in there? Of course not. Nice one, Mom.

Her fingers dipped into the side pockets, her search becoming frantic. A few pens and pencils, a calculator, her lunch card, a pack of gum, a crumpled physics test . . . all the detritus of high school wedged in forgotten corners, which she sorted through in disgust and increasing alarm. Her knotted earbud cable caused her heart to leap in hope, but her phone – _her phone wasn't there_.

Cristobel flung the earbuds to the helicopter's flooring and burst into tears.

By the time the helicopter lightly touched down again, she had regained control of herself. She stared out the front window, taking in what looked like a junkyard and a trash heap all in one. When Tseng handed her down to the other Turk, she tapped her foot disbelievingly on the ground.

There was dirt, all right. For Godsakes, nothing was _paved_ down here. And the smell . . . the air was foul. Polluted. She tipped her head back. The sky had become one big, sooty smear – the underside of the Sector Six plate.

Tseng hopped down and scrutinized Cristobel. She glared at him, refusing to be cowed.

"Ananda," he said to the other Turk, "get her cleaned up. Corneo won't want to see her looking like that. And make it quick. We need to be back at headquarters by five."


	4. Part I, Chapter 4

The pretty Turk, Ananda, didn't have much to say.

Truthfully, Cristobel didn't want her to talk. Ananda's fair hair, cut to her chin, framed a childlike face, but she was as quick and deadly accurate with her gun as Tseng. The three of them inched their way through piles of twisted metal, the burned-out hulks of construction equipment, dismembered robotic arms, and abandoned pipes, and the Turks carved a path through the hordes of red hedgehog pies, slimy headless whole eaters, and one demented hell house that snuck up on them from behind. Eventually, they arrived at a calm place: A fenced-in playground. There, Ananda herded Cristobel behind a white domed slide, the kind that looked like a teddy bear with the slide coming out of its smiling mouth, and stood guard while Cristobel took stock of her condition.

According to her compact mirror, she certainly did look a mess. While she didn't care what this dilettante Corneo thought of her, she cared about her appearance. She wiped her face clean with her handkerchief, refreshed her makeup to hide the ugly bruise (gift of Tseng), ran her hairbrush through her strawberry-blonde curls, and pulled her hair into a ponytail. She straightened her shirt – short sleeves, since summer was just around the corner, with the school's emblem embroidered on the chest pocket – and her skirt, which was red and black plaid. Her boots, dusty and scuffed, couldn't be helped.

Ananda, appraising her with empty, blue eyes, nodded, and they moved off again.

Cristobel, who went for a run every morning to stay in shape, didn't mind walking, but she was getting restless. Didn't anyone have a car down here? Then, a grinding noise, like a parade of people shuffling through the gravel, caught her attention.

A garish chocobo-drawn carriage caught up to and passed them, heading in the same direction, and her jaw dropped.

A _chocobo_? Seriously? She'd never even seen one before! It was bigger than she'd imagined, with an orange beak and bright eyes, the proud head sporting tassels on its bridle and reins, the long yellow tail feathers waving like a fan as it trotted unevenly on giant, clawed bird's feet.

She glowered after it. Whether these people were too poor to drive cars or not, that chocobo carriage was still moving faster than they were. It was soon out of sight.

"He's waiting for us," Ananda said, holding a phone identical to Tseng's to her ear. "We're supposed to go right to the mansion."

"Expedient," Tseng said.

Cristobel wanted to gag. It was like a bad spy movie.

Worse, she was getting hungry.

They passed several people as they walked, all of whom took one look at the grim pair of Turks and hurried the other way, and so Cristobel didn't realize at first that the corrugated metal and cinderblock structures (which often lacked symmetry and discernable doors) were actually people's homes. She felt ashamed of herself when she figured it out.

Dad had said something about it once. _No one lives in the slums because they want to__._

Well, she definitely didn't want to live here.

And then, without warning, they rounded a corner, passed under an archway, and emerged in a crowded, noisy, neon-riddled market. From somewhere out of sight, cheesy festival music played at ear-shattering levels. "Welcome to Wall Market," read a sign. Rising above the ramshackle huts and the crowds, the wall that separated the Sector Six slums from the Sector Seven slums rose like an impassible cliff. They passed an inn ("Why don't you get some rest?" a man at the door called. "We have beautiful rooms."), a shop with racks of dresses proudly displayed out front, a diner (Cristobel thought, for a split second, to ask Tseng and Ananda about stopping for food, but the glimpse she caught of the interior dulled her hunger), and then a giant dump overflowing with more of the wreckage and junk she'd already seen. A gym. A bar. A gaggle of ratty children who scattered like roaches under a naked light bulb, and, finally, they arrived at an opulent mansion set well back from the hectic atmosphere of the market.

"Kotch. We'll be going in," Tseng said in his supremely bored way.

The dark-skinned doorman, wearing cowboy boots, a red vest, and a five-pound gold chain, nodded his mohawked head. When he caught sight of Cristobel, a stupid grin spread over his face.

"A great find, Mr. Tseng," he called after them.

Cree_py_. What was that all about?

The inside of the mansion blinded her, it was so full of gold ornamentation and burning lights. It was supposed to look like some kind of palace, she assumed. God, it was _tacky_. And so out of place. Why would anyone build something this luxurious amidst such poverty and filth? It practically screamed, _better than thou_.

A second henchman met them in the lobby, this one dressed in a green suit jacket and white trousers.

"This way, please," he said in an oily voice. "Watch your step, ladies. Wouldn't do to have you getting lost, now would it?"

"Thank you for your concern," Ananda said in such a dead voice that it killed the flunky's leer.

Cristobel started shivering, though the mansion was warm. She didn't like this ugly place, the brazen display of wealth, the staring, grinning men.

But it was nothing compared to the man, Don Corneo.

The flunky, who gave his name as Skotch, led them to the second floor and through a large set of double doors. A narrow, plush red carpet ran the length of this room, as if it was a throne room. A pudgy man with a well-greased, blond-dyed mohawk met them at the end of the carpet, a glass of wine clutched in a bejeweled hand. He wore a red ermine robe over a dress shirt and slacks, like he fancied himself a king. A gold medallion rested in the V of his unbuttoned shirt, on a patch of dark chest hair.

_Oh, my _God, Cristobel thought. _Dilettante, my left foot. He's a freaking _gigolo.


	5. Part I, Chapter 5

"Hmm," the fat man purred, his eyes dropping in an elevator crawl from Cristobel's chest to her knees and back up. She held her ground. It wasn't that much worse than the looks Matt's friends gave her when she was in her cheerleading uniform. She _liked_ to be looked at. She was attractive, and she knew it. Her long, strong legs were her best feature.

"Her age?" Corneo asked.

Tseng looked at her dispassionately, and so she answered clearly, "Sixteen."

Corneo's eyes snapped from her body to the Turk's face. "That's awfully young."

"I'm sure you could find something for her to do until she's of age," Tseng said with a sigh. His phone buzzed again, and he looked at it but didn't pick up. "I'm sorry, but we must cut this short. We're needed back at headquarters."

"Fine. I'll take her!" Corneo sang, sounding like a little boy with an ice cream cone. _Lick it up, yum_. "The price?"

The Turk named off an exorbitant amount of gil, that mollified Cristobel a little. "Her father's debt."

"Hmm, isn't it always?" Corneo gave a high-pitched giggle that made his round belly bounce. "And there's something you'll wanna hear, about our friends in Sector Seven. . . ."

Cristobel tuned them out, left standing by herself, guarded by the watchful Skotch. Chances were good he was adept at catching runaways, and so she didn't bother trying. Instead, she amused herself with imagining that fat idiot Corneo doing anything with a woman. Wouldn't his gut get in the way? He wasn't like Matt, who was long and lean like all basketball players should be. At least she wasn't an innocent – or a virgin. She knew what kind of a place this was now.

And it sounded like, since she was underage, she would have time to figure out how to avoid the usual fate of the girls here.

First things first, she needed a phone. Or a computer.

"Jeez," said a feminine voice. "They've got another baby, the poor thing. What's your name, sweetie?"

Cristobel turned around.

The woman was pretty enough, but what the hell did they have her wearing? Her costume made her look like a giant bee, antennae and stinger included. A white collar, unattached to any other article of clothing, circled her slim neck, and the same with the cuffs at her wrists. She also wore a red bowtie and ruby slippers. Was that supposed to be _cute_?

"Um, Cristobel Coleridge," she said belatedly, and then managed to turn her giggle into a cough.

_Please, God, don't make me wear that_. _How does she _sit?

"Why, that's lovely! Our own little Crystal Bell. You'll fit right in with us Honeybees."

The humor faded. Honeybees. How was this any different than high school, where the sports teams were the Sector Seven Demons and the cheerleading squad called themselves the SheDevils? At how many pep rallies and games had she willingly kicked her legs and wiggled her butt for a watching crowd, smiling and screaming for all she was worth?

This wasn't a joke. Because of her parents' selfishness and cowardice, her life had taken an irredeemable wrong turn. At the far side of the room, the Turks and Don Corneo were deep in negotiations, and seemed to have forgotten all about Cristobel.

Good. If she never saw any of them again, she could die happy.

"Candy, will you take her from here?" Skotch asked. His hand descended to the woman's rear and squeezed. "I'm counting on you, sweet thing."

Candy simpered. "Of course. Right this way, sweetie."

Cristobel was staring at Tseng, wondering what would have happened if he had shot her father instead.

"Come on, sweetie, don't worry about him now," Candy urged. Soft, warm arms encircled her shoulders and steered her gently away. A mother's arms. Cristobel stared at her in shock. "You just stick with me," Candy whispered. "I'll teach you how to get by here. Men are easy to deal with. You'll see."

"Where are we going?" Cristobel asked, fighting back another round of tears. She didn't want her mascara to run.

She wished her real mother had been as caring as this stranger. This prostitute.

"The Honey Bee Inn," Candy said, all business again, prancing down the staircase like a debutante attending her first ball. "It's on the southeast side of Wall Market. We rent by the room, and there's a dorm for the girls in the back. It's a members-only establishment, but that doesn't mean we don't get the occasional weirdo."

"So I'm not staying here?" Cristobel brightened.

"Gracious, no! Yuck!" Candy patted her shoulder, but then she sobered. "We Honeybees stick together, queens of the hive. The Don only calls girls here to entertain, or to . . . test their paces, shall we say?"

"Yuck is right," Cristobel muttered.

The two of them exited the mansion through a side door, and there was the chocobo carriage, lanterns swinging from its purple-painted roof. Cristobel found herself grateful she wouldn't have to walk through Wall Market again, with Candy and her ridiculous costume. The carriage pulled away from the mansion. With a sigh, she sat back and closed her eyes.

"Candy?" she ventured.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Is there a phone I can use? I need to call my boyfriend."

Candy didn't answer, and the silence stretched on so long that Cristobel opened her eyes and sat up again. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry. There are no phones in the Inn. It's forbidden for us to use one."

"For real? What about a computer, then?"

Candy was shaking her head, her antennae flopping. "The only computers are in the Don's mansion, and Skotch won't let you touch them. I'm afraid that boyfriend of yours will have to forget all about you."

It felt like everything was falling away, Candy, the carriage, even her own body. Gone, and with it, all hope.

She should have let Tseng shoot _her_.


	6. Part II, Chapter 1

Cristobel learned a lot in the ensuing two years.

Within a day of her arrival, after a good meal and a full ten hours of sleep, Cristobel – or rather, Crystal – got to work. It was no different than being on the squad at school. She, the other Honeybees decided, could help with the nightly shows. They gave her a costume, a silky green dress to go with her eyes, so that the patrons would know she was as-yet unavailable, and then set her loose to organize and choreograph dance routines.

At first, Crystal had raged against the loss of her phone and all of her music and photos – her _life_. She made use of the Inn's Muzak system and recycled simple cheerleading routines that she and a handful of girls could perform on the Inn's rickety little stage. Then, at Candy's suggestion, she made nice with Corneo's henchman, Skotch. Skotch, flattered by her attention, allowed her to borrow his computer to download new music to replace the old, cheesy stuff at the Inn.

Of course, she also seized the opportunity to log in to webmail and shoot off a few furtive pleas for help to Matt and her friends, but when each one of them bounced back as undeliverable, Crystal knew that she was trapped but good. She never checked her email again. Even Matt's memory faded. He and the others would graduate high school and move on with their lives. She, well . . . she had no future. To thank Skotch for his help (and for not pinching her butt), she threw herself into tailoring the dance routines, to be performed costumed or topless by the Honeybees, and the shows gained popularity.

One night, another young girl arrived at the inn. Candy gave her a stage name also: Shimmy, because she was a tad on the chubby side.

"But don't worry, sweetie," Candy soothed her. "Some men like that."

Shimmy spent the days crying, and balked at her dress, which, like Crystal's, was slit all the way to her hip on both sides, and left nothing above her waist to the imagination. Crystal tried to encourage her by giving her pep talks like her squad leader used to do, but Shimmy gave her a red-eyed look of hatred and Crystal gave up and left her to suffer.

After several weeks, Candy gave Crystal more duties. She began helping with the rented rooms, fetching food and drinks, or performing private dances. Those, of course, were a little harder to do and keep smiling, but in this way she met the only men who worked at the Inn. Mukki and his gang were all oiled-up bodybuilders in skimpy bikini briefs, and they didn't treat Crystal or the other Honeybees like meat. They were funny, and gentlemanlike, and Crystal loved to sit with them during their breaks and laugh at their stories and jokes.

There was no privacy at the Honey Bee Inn. What went on in the rented rooms was general knowledge among the staff members; Crystal and the other girls often watched from behind the paneling like guard dogs, to make sure that their friends weren't being mistreated by the men who came to buy their services. It didn't happen often, but when one got violent, Crystal went running for Mukki.

But it wasn't always the men who kept things under control. Once, when an insistent fellow followed Candy into the dressing room, she kept her cool even though the other girls succumbed to hysterics. Candy detached her stinger, brandished it like a rapier, and finally stabbed the intruder with it, chasing him out of the room, where the bouncer took over and escorted him out of the Inn.

Despite the bouncer reminding customers to gather their belongings before they left, many patrons forgot things in the rooms. Clothes, shoes, even wallets sometimes. In cleaning up the &$#% Room, Crystal discovered a green marble, about the size of a golf ball. Whatever it was, it was pretty; she turned it in the light and watched it sparkle. She looked around the room, debating with herself. She could turn it in to the Lost and Found box – the SOLDIER who had left it here would probably come looking for it.

Or . . . she could keep it.

Crystal wasn't new to stealing. She'd gleaned several things out of the box already, such as a pair of cargo pants that fit her reasonably well, a long-sleeved shirt, and a man's jacket. The newsboy cap was a great find. All these things she kept wrapped up in her old backpack. Just in case.

The marble grew hot in her hand as she studied it. She frowned, holding it tighter, and then it suddenly glowed with orange light.

The pillow on the bed caught fire.

She dropped the marble in her mad scramble to smother the flames, but she got the fire put out and the ruined pillowcase stuffed in the trash. The marble, from which she had seen the fire shoot, went into her backpack. She cleaned herself up for the next show as if nothing had happened.

And so it went, for two years. Don Corneo, pleased with the money Crystal was bringing in as tips and show tickets, called her to the mansion nightly to dance.

But Crystal learned a lot about Don Corneo, too, when Skotch and Kotch and the others got drunk and started to talk. The Don lived here in Sector Six on President Shinra's payroll, to spy and gather information on the terrorist group, AVALANCHE, who was apparently based in the Sector Seven slums. Crystal watched the news whenever she could. Near her eighteenth birthday, AVALANCHE set a bomb in the Sector One mako reactor, and when it blew, it killed hundreds of people.

But it also cost Shin-Ra, Inc. a hell of a lot of gil.

The other girls cried and comforted each other, swearing that the Sector Six slums were safe, protected by the Don's status, but not Crystal. Crystal secretly hoped AVALANCHE would destroy all eight reactors. It would serve President Shinra right.

Besides, once she turned eighteen, she would be of age. Don Corneo had taken to giving each of the new girls a "private interview." He had expressed great anticipation for hers. She needed to escape before that happened. But what could she do?


	7. Part II, Chapter 2

AVALANCHE blew the Sector Five reactor. The damage was plastered all over the news. People panicking in the streets, flaming wreckage still raining down, the power out across the grid.

Her eighteenth birthday arrived. Crystal couldn't decide which was a worse catastrophe.

Candy and Mukki procured a cake for her, one with strawberry-flavored frosting, and they held a quiet party in the hour before the Inn opened its doors for the night.

"It'll be all right," Candy kept saying.

Crystal felt like telling her to shut up, but Candy was her friend. She ate her cake quietly.

"Yo, Mukki! Get a move on! Someone's ordered the Group Room," yelled one of his gang.

"If you could hurry, please," Shimmy said petulantly from the doorway. She wore her Honeybee costume, having passed her interview with Don Corneo. Even after two years, Shimmy still hated Crystal's guts.

"Brother," said Mukki. He shoved his chair back and stood up, and then winked at Crystal and flexed an oiled arm. "Want to join us?"

She snorted into her pink frosting. "That's right. I guess I'm old enough now."

"It's your night, girl!" he cried, posing suggestively for her. "Do whatever you want tonight."

"What's the guy like?" she wondered.

Shimmy rolled her eyes. "He's weird. Moody. They all are. He ordered the room and then asked me what he was going to be doing."

Candy smiled. "Go on, really? A newbie? Should be interesting."

"I don't think I'll join you, Mukki," Crystal decided, "but I'm going to peek. Want to come, Candy?"

"I'm afraid I'm wanted in the Lonely Room, sweetie."

"All right." Impulsively, she hugged the older woman. "Thank you."

Candy didn't ask for what. She hugged Crystal back and disappeared, and Crystal ran after Shimmy and Mukki. She slipped into place behind the paneling just as Mukki and his Spandex-wearing gang stampeded into the room.

"Yeah!" one of them shouted, and Crystal could swear she saw the customer jump in surprise. His spiky blond hair was all she could see of him, though, because Mukki and his boys quickly surrounded his shorter form.

"One, two! One, two!" they chanted.

"Wassup?" Mukki bellowed, grinning through his greased handlebar moustache.

The customer spoke, as if to himself. "Looks like I'm going to be facing crises all my life."

Crystal had to cover her mouth with her hands to keep from laughing out loud. Oh, this was _priceless_. Mukki, she could tell, was going to have a little fun at his expense.

". . . _heave_ . . . _pant_ . . . Don't be so embarrassed! Loosen up, bubby! . . . _heave_ . . . _pant _. . . Let's wash off all our sweat and dirt together!"

They converged on the blond customer.

"Bubby!" Mukki exclaimed. He and the others started removing articles of clothing – and she didn't think Blondie was helping them. "You're the intimate type, huh! . . . _heave_ . . . _pant_ . . . Wow! Would ya look at that!"

Like herding a wayward chocobo, Mukki's gang corralled the customer and got him in the spa. His blond head barely reached Mukki's shoulder, but Crystal could see his face, now.

_Moody_ didn't even begin to describe it. And he was handsome, too. He was pale, clean-shaven, with a mouth made for kissing. The kind of guy who didn't belong in the Inn, and she thought she was a pretty good judge of that by now. But his eyes . . . What was wrong with his eyes?

"Isn't bathing great?" Mukki asked. "It soothes your heart. How is it, bubby? Feels good, huh?"

After a long pause, Blondie muttered, "I don't feel good. Let me out." He was carefully looking nowhere but at the wall, a little island of discomfort in the bubbling hot tub.

"You'll get used to it. Try counting to ten."

Obediently, Blondie said, "Ten . . . nine . . ."

"Hey, bubby, how old are you?"

"Eight . . . Twenty-one," he said tonelessly.

"You're less than half my age. I'm so jealous. So how 'bout it? Do you wanna join my 'Young bubby's group?' "

"Seven . . . six . . . Maybe in another life."

"Well, if that's how you feel, too bad. We have a trip planned at a cabin out in the country."

Blondie didn't even pretend to listen. "Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. All right, that's ten. I'm gettin' out."

"Why don't you stick around and play a bit?" Mukki wheedled, warmed up to his job now. "Daddy's so lonely."

Like a flash of lightning, Blondie was up and out in a wave of water. They all piled out of the tub after him, but Crystal, with tears streaming down her face from her pent-up laughter, didn't see, and missed him pulling his clothes hastily back on.

"Bubby! This is important to me. Here's a memento of our time together!" Mukki handed over a pair of souvenir Honey Bee Inn bikini briefs. "Hope we meet again!"

And with that, they all trotted out of the room, followed closely by Shimmy. The blond man, however, hesitated. A look of pain streaked across his face.

"This is _some_ underwear. I'm supposed to wear this? Well, if it's to save Tifa, I guess there's no way around."

He left. Correction: He _bolted_. Crystal remained in her hiding spot until Shimmy returned to prepare the room for the next customer, but she was no longer in the mood to laugh.

_To save Tifa__. _Who was Tifa? It sounded like a girl. A girl like her, sold to Don Corneo against her will, and here was her brave, strong boyfriend, coming to rescue her.

It made Crystal want to vomit.


	8. Part II, Chapter 3

Later that evening, the chocobo carriage came for Crystal, and, alone, she boarded it.

With her backpack.

She didn't know what she was going to do, but burning the mansion down with her magic fire marble sounded like a pretty damn good option.

"Here's another one," Kotch called gleefully when she alighted.

"Hello, Kotch," she said with a smile and an inward groan.

"Whaddaya think, baybee?" he asked, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her close. "Is it my lucky night, or what?"

"Yours?" Crystal frowned.

"Yeah, another girl arrived at sundown. Tifa – you heard of her? She's the newest girl at the Inn."

Poor Blondie. If Tifa was here at the mansion, then he was too late to rescue her. When girls needed to be saved, they had to save themselves. Crystal clutched her backpack, brooding. Fortunately, Kotch, who didn't expect her to answer, kept talking and didn't notice.

"The Don's in the market for a bride. Every day, he gets three girls, and chooses one of them, and then, well . . ." He grinned. "Let's just say, there are perks in working for Don Corneo."

"I can just imagine," she muttered. "Listen, Kotch, I have to get ready –"

"What's this?" he asked suddenly, jerking her backpack out of her hands.

"Hey, don't touch! That's for me and the Don, thank you very much!"

For one heart-stopping moment, she thought Kotch had grown a brain, and a shadow darkened his face, but then Skotch appeared. "Kotch, get back to the door! What if that troublemaker comes back?"

With a yelp, Kotch saluted and scampered off.

"Wait here, Crystal," Skotch said to her. "I've got to finish getting things ready."

"Of course," she simpered, the way Candy had taught her. "Say, where is the new girl?"

"Tifa? I've got her waiting down below. Some of the boys are getting overexcited." Skotch walked behind the receptionist's desk and started punching things up on the computer.

Crystal sidled over, leaning her elbows on the desk, which, of course, let him have a good look down the front of her dress. She didn't care. As long as he was looking at her breasts, he wasn't going to be thinking about her backpack. "That's horrible," she said, smiling as if at a private joke. "Leaving a poor girl down in the Torture Chamber alone."

"Yeah, well, there isn't anywhere else –"

He was interrupted by Kotch's voice. "Damn! Your friend is hot, too! Come in, come in! Two ladies, coming through!"

"_Two_? Now, wait a minute . . ." Skotch shoved the keyboard away and strode out of the lobby.

A girl in a slinky red dress emerged while Skotch and Kotch argued unintelligibly in the entranceway, her green eyes wide with curiosity. She looked like a kid in an amusement park, unsure of which ride she should try first. The tall girl who awkwardly shuffled after her, however, must have been scared out of her senses. She wore a purple dress that covered her from neck to ankles, and her blonde hair was done up in messy pigtails.

With a harassed sigh, Skotch reappeared and strode over to the staircase. Over his shoulder, he said, "Hey, ladies. I'll go and let the Don know you're here. Wait here. Don't go wandering around."

No sooner had he vanished upstairs than the girl in red turned to her friend and whispered, "Now's our chance. Let's find Tifa."

The blonde girl nodded, and Crystal caught a glimpse of her pale face. Of her eyes, the strange, blue-green irises . . . What was wrong with her eyes?

"Oh, my God!" Crystal exploded. "You! You're the guy from the Inn!"

"Oh!" said the girl in red, grinning. "Is she a new friend, Cloud?"

"What? No!" Blondie looked positively miserable. He must have been having one hell of a night. "Aerith, I swear, I've never seen her before."

Crystal couldn't help it. She started to laugh. How in the _hell_ had that retard Kotch mistaken this guy for a girl? He wasn't built like one, for starters, despite the dress and wig. And his face – well, okay, he had a pretty face, but it wasn't a girlish kind of pretty.

"Hey, could you help us? We're looking for a girl named Tifa," said the girl in red, Aerith.

Crystal stopped laughing. Her heart was pounding so hard now that she could hear the blood rushing through her veins. These two were here on a rescue mission, which meant _they had a plan for getting out_. And that guy – he looked tough. Tougher than Corneo's drunken henchmen.

"If I tell you, you have to do something for me," she said. Her voice came out higher than usual, with no volume behind it, and she clenched her fists.

"We don't have time for this," Cloud said.

Crystal narrowed her eyes at him. "If you won't help me, then I swear I'll scream. That's all it will take, and this little game of yours is _over_, pal."

"Cloud." Aerith put her hand on his arm, smiling, and then she turned to Crystal. "What do you want from us?"

"When you leave, I want you to take me with you," she said steadily.

"No," said Cloud.

"Please." Crystal was shaking. This was it. Do or die.

"Do you want to go home?" Aerith asked gently.

For a split second, memories of home threatened to drown her, and then her hatred flamed up and burned it all away. It had been two _years_. "No. I just want out of here."

"Aerith, we can't –" Cloud started.

"She's below," Crystal blurted. "Go up the stairs and enter the door at the far end. But don't make any noise, because the Don's room is up there. I'll . . . I'll distract them. So, please. Take me with you."

Aerith clapped her hands. "Deal! Come on, Cloud, let's go save Tifa!"

However, she gave Crystal a long, clear-eyed look. Out of nowhere, she said, "There is no parent in the world who doesn't love their child."

Crystal's heart skipped. And then hardened. "I know a couple who make a liar out of you."


	9. Part II, Chapter 4

_Why did I think I could trust them_?

Crystal's diversion was pretty simple. She'd skulked outside of the Don's room, accosted Skotch on the way out, and offered to entertain him and the other men with a dance.

"On the house," she'd said, flashing him her biggest cheerleader smile.

Of course, he'd agreed to it immediately, and now here she was, music throbbing, surrounded by a roomful of men, dancing. The men jeered and catcalled, wanting more than the usual – she was, after all, legal – but she pretended not to hear. When Skotch checked his beeper and left, she despaired; her time was up.

It looked like it was going to be arson, after all. If she was lucky, she'd take most of these goobers with her in the fire.

Contemplating murder didn't bother her. In fact, the thought of snuffing these wasted, pointless lives out in a fiery wave thrilled her. She was already hot and sweaty. The magical flames could burn her to a crisp, too, and she'd welcome it. All she had to do was hold the marble in her hand and make her wish, and it would all finally end.

Skotch returned and shut off the music, and then waded through his cohorts as a few of the drunker ones tossed lime wedges at him, abuse he took good-humoredly. There was a curious high in the air, affecting them all. "Crystal, let's go."

Shouldering her backpack as innocently as possible, she went.

She and Matt had slept together several times before her father ruined everything, memories that had dwindled to almost nothing, but she had loved him. She couldn't imagine doing anything of the sort with someone she loathed.

With her heart fluttering around in her chest like a dying bird, she entered the Don's rooms with her eyes on her feet. That was why she didn't see the others at first.

They were there! Cloud, Aerith, and a dark-haired, shapely girl in a blue miniskirt, lined up in front of Don Corneo like contestants on a game show. Aerith and the girl who must be Tifa both nodded at her; Cloud, understandably, locked his eyes on his shoes, lost in red-faced misery. Oblivious to a fault, the Don, attempting a kingly attitude, spread his pudgy, ringed hands on his desk and nodded graciously at Skotch.

"Hmmm! Good, splendid!" he said. But then the anticipation got the better of him and he vaulted over his desk, making Crystal think of a badly-tossed water balloon, and checked out Aerith. "Now, let's see . . . Which girl should I choose? Hmm-hmm!"

He tried to scrutinize Cloud, too, ("This one?") bending directly into his face, but Cloud turned away exactly like a shy, frightened girl would. The Don suspected nothing, and moved to Tifa. "Or this one?"

He stepped up to Crystal last, fingering the waistband of his trousers. Then, startling them all, he pointed at the ceiling and sang, "Woo-hoo, I've made up my mind! My choice for tonight is . . ."

And then he stopped.

Directly in front of Cloud.

No. _No way_.

"This little beauty!"

That was it. It was over. She was safe, for another night.

The Don had chosen Tifa.

Tifa laughed behind her hand and then swept her impossibly long, almost-black hair out of her eyes. Elegant pearl-drop earrings glinted. "Be nice, Don."

Don Corneo waved at Skotch and imperiously said, "You can have the other ones!"

"Yes, sir! Thank you sir!"

"Well then, shall we go my pretty?" The Don was practically slobbering down Tifa's slender white neck, his hands dancing in front of her impressive chest.

Tifa, a spark of fire in her eyes, looked at Cloud and Aerith, and then nodded. Although Corneo didn't see, Crystal did – they nodded back, grimly.

_What the hell was going on_?

She kept her silence as Skotch led them back to the flunky's room, handing Aerith over to the impatiently waiting Kotch on the way. He flung open the door and yelled, "Hey guys! We've got guests. We'll take _real_ good care of you. This is all thanks to the big boss, Don Corneo!"

"Hey! Three cheers for Don Corneo!"

"Heh, heh . . . Well ladies, are we, uh, all ready?"

Crystal dropped her pack, threw back her shoulders, and raised her chin. This wasn't the Inn. Mukki, Candy, not even Shimmy was here to help her. Nothing was stopping these men from hurting her. Like kalm wolves stalking prey, they slithered toward her, arms outstretched. She clenched her fist around the hardness of the green marble.

"Wha – a _man_?" Skotch bellowed, nearly giving Crystal a coronary. So concerned about her own survival, she'd forgotten about Cloud. "God damn it! You think you can get away with this? Get him! Knock the crap out of him!"

The room erupted. Cloud, strange eyes glinting, braced himself for the onslaught of several angry men at once. His booted foot lashed out, catching one in the face, and then he vanished under the crush of bodies. Cushions and chairs went flying, and a table careered into the wall, bottles and ashtrays skiing off its top in a shower of beer and cigarette butts.

Cloud reappeared, his face a mask of concentration, a flunky's arm in his hands. He twisted, and there was a dull crunching sound followed by a shriek that pierced her eardrums. Crystal cringed.

"C'mon, what's the matter with you good for nothings?" Skotch snarled. "All right now, _come on_! I'll show you how it's done!"

He lunged for a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall. He whipped around, taking aim with a loaded shotgun.

Crystal threw out her hands, as if flesh and bone could shield her from the blast, and the green marble between them flared like a miniature sun. A great gout of flame roared across the room, stealing all the oxygen, all sound, all smell.

When she managed to breathe again, she opened her streaming eyes. Unharmed, Cloud picked his way through the pile of unconscious, broken, and bleeding henchmen, his strange eyes fixed on her. Of Skotch, she saw nothing.

Except for the greasy, ashy smear on the carpet and wall.

Crystal's stomach heaved.

"Fire materia," Cloud commented. "Where did you get that?"

"Picked it . . . off the ground . . ." she gasped.

"Think you can handle it?"

"I think I handled it all right just now."

He smirked. "Then come on."


	10. Part II, Chapter 5

They found Aerith in the Torture Chamber, running in circles from Kotch. When she saw them, she charged up the stairs, grinning like a kid in a game of tag, dropped, turned, and shoved Kotch full in the stomach. Kotch tumbled head over heels and landed in a heap at the bottom, giggling incoherently.

"I'm so sorry!" she yelled after him. Then, brightly, she joined them with a couple of wrapped bundles in her arms. "Got them!"

Cloud took the biggest one, and dropped the wrapping to the floor. Easily, he swung the huge sword into the harness on his back (how he had hidden his regular clothes under the dress mystified Crystal). He took a deep breath, the harness straps straining, as if exulting in his return to masculinity. "You all right?"

"I told you. I'm used to danger." Aerith neatly braided her long, light brown hair, hesitated, and then smiled. "To tell you the truth, my heart was pounding."

"What are you people still doing here?" Crystal exclaimed. "I don't understand why you didn't just get out while you could."

"Well . . ." Aerith tilted her head. "We have some business with the Don."

"We've gotta save Tifa," Cloud interrupted.

Her smile fell a little. "Yes, you're right. Let's hurry!"

"This way," Crystal sighed. Obviously, this was not the time for her questions. She felt like she was running in circles, herself, when they barged into the Don's empty rooms. Cloud, with his longer stride, reached the back room first.

"Cloud!" Tifa cried. Crystal and Aerith burst in just as Tifa leaped off the bed, narrowly avoiding Corneo's leap at _her_.

He bounced onto his face. When he looked up again, it was red. "What the hell? Who goes there?"

"You still don't get it do you, Don Corneo?" Tifa asked.

"Tifa! I found yours," Aerith said, and she tossed another wrapped bundle over Corneo's head, which Tifa caught easily. She produced a worn pair of red gloves and pulled them on.

"Get what?" Corneo snarled. His eyes widened when they fell on Crystal, standing uncertainly in the doorway.

To avoid his gaze, Crystal looked around the room. It was just as tacky as the rest of the mansion, from the gigantic, canopied bed, to the white tiger pelt on the floor.

"Shut up," Tifa snapped, loathing flashing from her dark eyes. "We're asking the questions now. What did your assistants find out? Talk! If you don't tell us . . ."

Cloud moved forward. Even with his sword safely strapped to his back, there was murder in his face. He put a foot up on the bed. "I'll chop them off."

Crystal blinked. It was such a ridiculous, elementary-school thing to say, but on a simpleton like Corneo, it got the message across. He jumped and went white.

"No! Not that! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"

"So talk," Tifa said emptily.

"I made 'em find out where the man with the gun-arm was. But that's what I was ordered to do."

"By who?"

"No! If I told you that, I'd be killed!

"Talk! If you don't tell us . . ."

Aerith was in the game now. She smiled sweetly. "I'll rip them off."

"It was Heidegger of Shin-Ra!"

"The head of Public Safety Maintenance?" Cloud asked, his strange eyes holding all the focus of a hunting cat's.

"He controls the Turks," Crystal put in. "I heard it from Skotch."

"What do you think you're doing? Don't forget, little girl, that I own you," Corneo spat at her.

"Not anymore!" Overcome with fury, she yanked open the chest of drawers next to her and upended them all over the floor. She kicked through their contents in disgust. She discovered a bottle of hyper, and stuffed it and a handful of gil into her backpack. "These are things, and they're mine now. I'm not a thing, to buy or sell. I'm a person!"

She wasn't the only one struggling to keep her cool. Tifa shoved in next to Cloud, attracting Corneo's attention. "Did you say the Shin-Ra? What are they up to? Talk! If you don't tell us, I'll smash them."

"You're serious, aren't you? I'm not fooling around here either, you know." He wet his thick lips. "Shin-Ra's trying to crush a small rebel group called AVALANCHE, and they're really going to crush them . . . literally. By breaking the support holding up the plate above them."

Crystal paused in her ransacking.

"Break the support?" Tifa's voice was faint.

Don Corneo's, in contrast, got very loud. "You know what's going to happen? The plate'll go _ping_ and everything's gonna go _bam_! I'm just glad their hideout's not here in Sector Six."

Everybody froze, horror overtaking each expression. "They're going to wipe out the Sector Seven Slums?"

It was all falling away again. Crystal couldn't feel her hands, her legs, the floor beneath her feet. If Shin-Ra broke the support, not only would everyone in the slums die, but everyone on top of the plate would, too.

Matt. Mom. Dad.

"Cloud, will you come with me to Sector Seven?" Tifa asked breathlessly.

"Of course, Tifa."

"I'm coming too!" Crystal said. "My parents – please!"

"Just a second!" Corneo cried.

"Shut up!" Cloud said, reaching for his sword.

Still sprawled on his bed, Corneo raised his hands. "No wait, it'll only take a second. How do you think scum like me feels when they babble on about the truth?"

"They don't know what the hell's going on," Cloud said, but he wasn't paying attention anymore. He was herding all three girls around the bed, toward the door.

Corneo's stupid, high-pitched giggle pealed out. "Close, but no cigar!"

Crystal didn't see what happened. One second, they were running across the tiger pelt, and the next, her stomach was in her mouth and they were falling in a tangle of arms, legs, and rug into blackness.


	11. Part III, Chapter 1

The knowledge that she was alive didn't help.

Not even the fact that she was kneeling in filthy water, with unidentifiable flotsam swirling around her wrists, could make her limbs respond.

She was crying. If there was pain, she didn't feel it, except in her heart, which was racing so hard it felt like it was going to implode.

It was the memory of falling. Of losing contact with the stable ground. Of the nothingness that swept all control from her.

It had been infinitely worse than the helicopter. She bawled like a kid, her nose running, her breath catching in hiccups and sobs.

Slowly, other sounds filtered through.

". . . all right?"

"Man!" Tifa huffed. "This is terrible!"

Water swishing, splashing footsteps. A large, warm hand descended on her back, lightly touching. Cloud's voice in her ear, sounding doubtful. Or skeptical. "Are you all right?"

_No_. Crystal held her breath. After twenty seconds her vision started to gray, but the tears stopped. She nodded, and the hand disappeared.

"Well, the worst is over," said Aerith, somewhere to the right; it was hard to tell exactly where in the gloom.

Crystal stood on shaking legs (oh, _gross_, they were in the sewers below the slums, judging by the slime-covered tunnel walls and the horrendous stench), but a tremor knocked her feet out from under her and she crashed painfully into the water. A rumbling sound filled the small space, growing and deepening, until her ears felt stuffed with wads of bass noise.

"Maybe not," Aerith corrected herself. She ripped the wrapping off a staff.

Cloud's hand closed on Crystal's upper arm, and he hauled her upright and then flung her behind him. The wall brought her up short, and she snarled at his back – that hadn't been concern for her so much as getting her out of his way. What a spiky-headed jerk!

Tifa put up her fists in a classic boxer's stance. The white knuckle padding on her gloves blared a warning as she zipped forward and landed two punches on something huge that loomed out of the darkness with the clanking of chains.

The thing roared and swung out a massive paw, which Tifa blocked, but the force of it sent her flying. She landed on her feet, and a spray of water splattered against the walls.

"What is it?" she asked, calmly, as if asking someone to pass her the salt.

"Oh, my God." The fear was leaving now, draining out of Crystal like the sewage down the drains. This monster was tangible, something she could see and touch, unlike the sensation of falling. "It's Aps. One of Corneo's pets."

"Weaknesses?" Aerith asked, twirling her staff. She whacked the creature on its lizardlike snout and it ambled toward her instead, piggy eyes glinting.

Cloud got in its way, and his sword opened up a bloody slash along its flank. Aps roared again, beating its chest, the broken chains swinging from its manacles.

"Weaknesses? What do you mean?" Crystal yelled after Aerith, who disappeared in the gloom.

"What's going to kill it?" Tifa elaborated, and then shot off again. Aps squealed as Cloud hacked at any part of the creature he could reach, and then Tifa moved in under one of his swings and landed a flurry of punches and kicks in its ghost-white belly.

Then, a blinding bolt of lightning slammed downward, charring the creature's right shoulder. A glowing green circle marked Aerith's location as she prepared another spell. However, Aps, roaring fit to bring the ceiling down on their heads, windmilled its arms and a huge wave of foul water submerged them all. Then the monster descended on Aerith, tongue lashing out like a whip, and she dropped, retching.

"Fire!" Cloud shouted, when he surfaced with a bedraggled Tifa on his arm.

Now Crystal understood. Aps thrived in the sewers, in the dark and the wet. All right. She gripped her materia so hard the tendons in the back of her hand popped, and wished with all her might. The materia lit up, eagerly – it _wanted_ to help her – and she sent the magical fire at the monster.

So it went, for she didn't know how long. She burned the creature again, her long, strong dancer's legs allowing her to dodge its increasingly uncoordinated attacks. Cloud and Tifa harried it with fists and sword to draw it away from her so that she could cast her spells. Finally, when they were all out of breath, bruised, and bleeding, not to mention drenched, Cloud got within the sweep of its powerful arms and shoved his sword straight through it, and the monster died.

"Aerith!" Tifa splashed across the tunnel and lifted her friend.

"I'm all right," Aerith said weakly. "It's just sadness. I'm out of hyper . . ."

"Oh!" Crystal looked wildly around. Where was her backpack? There! Up on the ledge, only a little wet. "I have one."

"Thank you." Aerith drank the little bottle's contents, grimaced at the taste, and then stood up with Tifa's help. Solemnly, she raised her staff, closed her eyes in concentration, and cast another spell. Crystal felt light as air, her scrapes and bruises healing rapid-time. She could see the materia, embedded in the staff, sending out its magical energy.

"We should go," Cloud said from beside the carcass of Aps. He seemed to have been searching it for something.

"We can't go like this," Aerith said firmly.

"Like what?"

Crystal looked down at herself and winced. The dress, revealing to begin with, had not survived the fight intact. Aerith and Tifa looked no better. "Cloud, turn around and don't peek!"

They changed as quickly as they could, Crystal with glee. She'd been planning this for so long. At last, she was free! She pulled on the cargo pants and belted them around her slim waist, added the long-sleeved boy's shirt, buttoned her old school shirt over it to hide the shape of her breasts, and zipped up the man's jacket. Her hair, she twisted on top of her head, and then yanked the newsboy cap over it. Lastly, she laced up her boots, slung her empty backpack onto her shoulder, and prepared to face the world as Cris, a boy from the slums.


	12. Part III, Chapter 2

"It's too late. Marlene. Barret. The people of the slums."

They were still in the sewers, taking a break from trudging through the muck, trying to find a way out. The air down there was ten times worse than in the slums, and Cris was feeling a little light-headed.

"Here. You can use this now," said Cloud, handing her an armlet. "Equip your materia to it. It works better that way."

"Don't give up, never give up hope," Aerith was saying to the despondent Tifa. "It's not easy to destroy the pillar, right?"

"Equip, like this?" Cris put the green fire materia against a slot in the armlet, and, with a pale green light, it sank in and disappeared.

"Take this one, too," Cloud said. He tossed a yellow marble into her lap. "You're fast. See if you can use that to steal supplies."

_Since I'm a liability in a fight_, Cris thought to herself, but she equipped the yellow steal materia without comment and fitted the armlet over her bicep.

"Yeah . . . you're right! We still have time." Tifa jumped to her feet. She paused, eyeing Cloud, who was attaching the giant sword to his back, and Cris, who was fingering the armlet. "Thank you for your help back there. What's your name?"

"Cris," said Cris. "Who are you? And, I don't mean your names," she added, looking around at them.

It was Tifa who answered. "We're – Cloud and I – we're from AVALANCHE."

"AVALANCHE?" Cris shot to her feet, too. "Can I join?"

Tifa looked worried. "Listen, it's not –"

"I don't care!" Cris burst out. "It's all because of Shin-Ra that I'm here! The Turks – my dad – my parents sold me to Don Corneo to pay a debt to President Shinra that wasn't even theirs! And now, if we don't stop them, my parents are going to die." _And I won't get the chance to kill them myself for what they did_. "Please, let me go with you."

"I'm coming, too," Aerith said.

"Aerith. I got you mixed up in all of this." Cloud frowned.

"Don't tell me to go home," she said, frowning back.

"Let's just hurry," Tifa said sharply.

Disgruntled with each other, they nevertheless walked swiftly and with care. The sewers teemed with life, and monster attacks grew more frequent the further they moved from Aps's erstwhile lair. The tortoise-like sahagin came at them in groups with their pikes and sand guns, while the ceasars hid under the water's surface; once, Cris felt claws snap shut on her ankle and nearly went under, but she fried the critter and limped on wordlessly. The others kept up a breakneck pace that she was determined to match.

It was obvious to her that both girls liked Cloud (Tifa's tough-girl attitude melted every time Cloud looked at her out of those strange, feral eyes of his), but he was a little harder to read. He was aware of the situation he was in, but seemed to think action – fighting monsters – was the best way to deal with it. Cris adopted the same strategy, staying out of their way, fitting herself more snugly into her new persona. She knew that anyone who got a good look at her would see through her boyish disguise, but she didn't intend to let anyone have that look. She wouldn't be free eye candy. Nor would she be content to let other people run her life. Not anymore.

When they finally climbed a rickety, rusting ladder out of the sewers, Cris stretched for the "sky," for once grateful to be in the slums.

"Where are we?" she asked.

Tifa looked around. "The train graveyard. If we can just get past the trains that are lit up, we should be able to get out of here."

The urgency had returned. Tifa and Cloud led the way through, around, and over great hulking skeletons of derelict trains, while Aerith and Cris straggled along behind, helping each other across shaky platforms and slippery metal supports.

A train graveyard. They must be near a station, then. What would happen if she took a train for upper Midgar? What would her parents do if she waltzed back into their house, looking like a ragged, dirty slum boy?

What would she say?

_Nothing_, Cris thought. _I have nothing to say. That part of my life is over. I never want to see them again. I'm going to join AVALANCHE and bring Shin-Ra down._

_The President is the real reason I'm in this mess._

Her backpack grew heavier, rattling satisfactorily with bottles of potion or ether, nestled on the handful of phoenix down tufts that she scavenged or stole. An eligor ambushed them while Cloud was busy hotwiring one of the abandoned trains to bulldoze it into an impassible pile of junk, and Cris managed to steal its striking staff, which Aerith accepted.

Cris watched her as Aerith sat down on the ground, heedless of her nice pink dress, and transferred the materia from her original staff to the new one. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course." Aerith smiled up at her.

"What did you mean earlier, when you said there is no parent who doesn't love their child?"

Aerith's head lowered, her bangs covering her eyes, as she worked on her new staff. "There was someone, a spirit, coming to see you, but she has already returned to the planet."

"A spirit? Do you mean, like a ghost? What are you talking about?"

But at the earsplitting, screeching, crunching sounds of Cloud clearing their path in the old train engine, Aerith shook her head, jumped up, and cheered with Tifa as if neither one of them had said anything at all.


	13. Part III, Chapter 3

"We made it! The pillar's standing!" Tifa cried exultantly.

Cloud frowned, the hunting cat look creeping over his face. "Wait! You hear something above us?"

Out of breath, they all stopped to listen.

"Gunfire?" Aerith suggested.

Cris stepped back to get a better view of the tower, craning her neck. It went up, perhaps twenty stories, most likely more, caged by a spiraling metal staircase. There, at the very top, flashes of light illuminated the blackened underbelly of the Sector Seven plate. A bright orange flare, stronger than the others, temporarily washed out the scene, and when her eyes focused again, she found herself watching someone writhe in freefall.

The people milling about on the ground gasped and shrieked as one. Tifa's eyes filled with tears, and she covered her mouth with her hands.

Cris had never actually seen someone die. Not even Skotch, though she had been the one to kill him.

She hoped, after the sickening impact of a body into the dirt, this person wasn't dead.

Cloud surged forward and knelt by the unmoving form. "Wedge! You all right?"

Cris didn't see how he could be, but he stirred weakly. ". . . Cloud . . . You remembered my name. Barret's up top . . . help him . . . An' Cloud . . . Sorry, I wasn't any help."

A long, weighty silence followed this, and then Cloud stood. "I'm going up. Cris. You look after Wedge."

"All right," she said, doubtfully. Cloud yanked his sword off his back and removed a green marble from it. It landed on the ground with a thud and sparkled. When Cris picked it up, it glowed blindingly. Restore materia. Quickly, she held it over the inert form of Wedge.

Tifa approached Aerith, her face whiter than was healthy. "Aerith, do me a favor. I have a bar called '7th Heaven' in this neighborhood. There's a little girl named Marlene there."

"Don't worry," Aerith said. "I'll put her somewhere safe."

Tifa scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, leaving a black smudge on her cheek, and then turned to the moaning, whimpering crowd. She shouted, "It's dangerous here! Everyone get away from the pillar, quickly! Everyone get out of Sector Seven!"

They separated, Tifa pelting after Cloud and Aerith running in the other direction. Not many of the bystanders evacuated, but continued to stand and watch the light show at the top of the pillar. Nobody screamed or cried. There was fear in every face, dismay, anger – but a strange determination shone there, too. Cris looked around at them all, wondering at their resolve.

_No one lives in the slums because they want to_.

Fury boiled in her heart, tasting hot and metallic at the back of her mouth. How could the President do this? Kill all these people, just to rid himself of a group of four or five?

_Easily_, her mind told her. _Look what happened to_ you.

In her hands, the materia's power stuttered and then died, and, horrified, she snapped her gaze to the man on the ground.

The man named Wedge was as white as paper, and his eyes were closed, but he was talking in a hoarse whisper. ". . . Don't worry about me. Cloud . . . he'll need that . . . Go . . . help Cloud . . ."

Shaking, Cris got to her feet and stared once more at the tower, at the stairs snaking upward, the distant gunfire that continued to paint the plate in shades of white and orange.

Well, there was only one way to stop Shin-Ra. Get up there and join AVALANCHE for real. She dashed forward, and the crowd scattered, yelling after her as she threw open the gate to the chain link fence and started bounding up the stairs. There were a lot of them. After several flights, her long, strong legs were screaming in protest. She might have given up after passing the first dead body – another AVALANCHE member, probably – but the people from the slums seemed to have affected her with their determination.

That, and the familiar black helicopter that roared past her, heading for the top of the tower.

Grabbing the rails, Cris hurled herself upward three stairs at a time, until her shoulders screamed in protest, too. At the top, a black-suited figure dropped from the circling helicopter, short red ponytail streaming out behind him, and he dashed over to a computer console in the center of the top platform. Cris staggered onto the platform, behind a very large man with a gun grafted onto his arm, who was still exchanging fire with someone in the helicopter. Cloud and Tifa were tangling with a couple of Aero Combatants, Shin-Ra soldiers that zoomed dizzyingly around their heads, dangling from hand-held propellers. Vainly trying to breathe through the fire in her lungs, Cris jumped up and down, waving her arms like she'd gone mad.

The big man saw her, saw where she was pointing, and swore fit to turn the air blue in a booming voice, which got the attention of Cloud and Tifa. They all converged on the lanky Turk.

"You're too late," he said, grinning. A pair of sunglasses glinted from their perch on his forehead, and as he swept his unbuttoned coat out of the way to put his hand in his pocket, it exposed an untucked dress shirt. He wasn't wearing a tie, either, instead leaving the top few buttons of the shirt undone. Very unlike the Turks she had seen so far. He lifted a hand. "Once I push this button . . ." The hand came down. The computer beeped. "That's all, folks! Mission accomplished."

"We have to disarm it!" Tifa screamed. "Cloud! Barret! Please!"

"I can't have you do that," the Turk said conversationally. "No one gets in the way of Reno and the Turks."


	14. Part III, Chapter 4

"Get outta my way!" the big man, Barret, bellowed. He had a tattoo on one boulder-like shoulder, and wore what looked like army fatigues.

"Not a chance, yo," Reno said, totally unfazed. A Shin-Ra-issued electro mag-rod dangled from a wrist strap; he grabbed it and pointed it at Barret. Lightning frizzled around the big man, whose shot went wide as he danced to avoid the white-hot sparks.

Although she had no weapon, no training in martial arts, with which to fight, Cris wasn't helpless anymore. She cast a spell, and fire whooshed around the Turk, who fell back with a yelp of surprise. Jacket smoking, he glared at her and pointed the mag-rod again. This time, a pyramid of light blossomed out of it – and then it fell on top of her.

"Hey!" she cried, darting at the glowing, golden walls of the light pyramid, but they repulsed her. She beat at it with her fists, kicked at it, attempted to burn it, but nothing worked. Vague shadows depicted Cloud and the Turk dueling it out on the other side of the barrier.

"Hold on to yer hat, kid!" Barret yelled, taking aim.

"Wait! Don't shoot at _me_! Stop!" Cris shrieked, but Barret fired anyway, and she dropped to the platform with a scream no one heard, her arms over her head. She could hear the bullets pinging off the pyramid, see the light fracture and shiver with each impact.

The pyramid shattered like glass, and vanished. Barret barreled toward Reno, the platform shaking under his big boots, but the redheaded Turk jumped nimbly out of the way. More bolt spells scattered the party – Cloud was hit, and fell to one knee, the giant sword sagging.

Cris, too frightened to get any closer, cast a cure spell from where she was standing, healing Cloud, and then Tifa, who was bleeding profusely from a cut down her arm. Reno seemed to be focusing on Barret, who certainly looked and sounded like the biggest threat, and so he didn't see Tifa coming. She decked him full in the face, and then landed a roundhouse kick to his elbow joint.

The Turk slammed into the platform, his arm twisted beneath him, the thumb parallel to his thigh. Somehow, he managed to roll out of the way before Cloud's sword could cut him in two.

"It's time, yo," Reno gasped, trying to sound nonchalant, but Cris was close enough to see that he was in a great deal of pain. The helicopter swarmed in, and Reno, holding his shattered arm, vaulted over the railing of the platform to safety.

Tifa wasted no time in rushing over to the computer, her fingers flying as she attempted to disarm the bomb. "Cloud!" she wailed. "I don't know how to stop this! Try it!"

"It's not a normal time bomb," he said after examining it.

Cris put out a hand to brace herself. After all this, were they going to fail?

Were people really going to die, both above and below the plate?

"That's right," someone called from the hovering helicopter. "You'll have a hard time disarming that one. It'll blow the second some stupid jerk touches it."

That voice. Cris whipped around, staring at the person leaning out of the open cargo doors of the helicopter, the red chakra mark showing clearly through his blowing, silky black hair.

_Tseng_.

Tifa threw out her arms. "Please, stop it!"

Tseng laughed, and Cris swallowed her rising bile. It had been bad enough when, two years ago, her abductor had merely smiled. "Only a Shin-Ra Executive can set up or disarm the Emergency Plate Release System."

"Shut yer hole!" Barret snarled. He opened fire on the helicopter.

"I wouldn't try that," Tseng said over the noise, protected by one armored door. "You just might make me injure our special guest."

Although Cris hadn't seen her there, when Tseng lifted her by the arm and Aerith raised her head, she felt like she was falling again; she felt like she should have seen it coming. Nothing was ever easy when dealing with the Turks.

"Aerith!" Tifa cried.

"Oh, you know each other?" Tseng asked, but he was talking to Aerith. "How nice you could see each other one last time. You should thank me."

"What are you gonna do with Aerith?" Cloud called.

"I haven't decided." Tseng shook his hair out of his face. "Our orders were to find and catch the last remaining Ancient. It's taken us a long time, but now I can finally report this to the President."

Unsmiling, but unafraid, Aerith leaned out of the helicopter. "Tifa, don't worry! She's all right!"

And then Tseng slapped her, and she fell out of sight.

"Aerith!" Tifa hung over the side of the platform, impotent and furious.

"Hurry and get out!" Aerith yelled, bravely pushing Tseng out of her way.

"Well, it should be starting right about now. Think you can escape in time?" Tseng laughed again, and pulled the cargo doors to. Small explosions rocked the platform, lighting up the ground so far below, and the helicopter flew away, taking Aerith with it.

"Once that plate starts coming down it's too late. We gotta hurry!" Tifa announced, turning from the platform's edge.

It was Barret who got them to safety, his muscular bulk bearing all three of them as they swung off the platform and into Sector Six on a loose wire hanging from the plate above.

But none of them could stop the bomb.

Cris, too frightened to scream as they soared through the air, watched the plate fall in slow motion. Fires blossomed against the blackness of the slums. The sheer noise, overstressed metal, electrical wires, gas lines, water pipes, keening, popping, exploding, breaking, sounded like the end of the world. Dreamily, she fixed her eyes on a distant spot in the night, looking up instead of down, and thought, _There_. _My house was there_.

_Now I can never go home_.


	15. Part III, Chapter 5

Never in her previous life as a normal, stuck-up cheerleader in a second-class high school, had Cris dreamed she'd break into the Shin-Ra Building.

Or that she'd spend an uncomfortable night in a jail cell.

They rescued a strange orange animal from the scientist Hojo's lab when they rescued Aerith, who gave his name as Red XIII. "A name with no meaning whatsoever to me. Call me whatever you wish.

"I have a right to choose, too. I don't like two-legged things."

"What are you?" Barret asked, with more surprise than tact.

The orange animal shook his straggly mane, and the feathers and bangles braided into it clacked. "An informed question. But difficult to answer. I am what you see."

What Cris saw were flames burning at the end of his tail in place of hair, and four massive paws, and a scar that had sealed his right eye shut. The other eye, fierce and golden, roved over them. "You must have many questions," he said, "but first, let's get out of here. I'll lead the way."

It wasn't his fault that they were captured. Another Turk, a tall, dark-skinned, bald man with a pair of wraparound sunglasses over his eyes and tiny silver hoops in his ears, intercepted them at the elevators, and the President had them all locked away.

Aerith and Cris ended up together.

With her newfound knowledge of Aerith's heritage, and the older girl's ability to speak with the planet, she listened with a calmer heart as Aerith told her about her mother.

"She regretted what she had done to you," Aerith said softly. "She took her own life shortly after Tseng took you away. She – her spirit – was coming to see you, but she found her peace in the planet. One day, you will meet her again."

"So she wasn't in the explosion."

"No."

Two cells over, Barret was talking to himself in his booming voice.

". . . The Shin-Ra believe that the Promised Land is full of mako energy. Which means, if the Shin-Ra get there, they'll suck up all the mako energy and the land'll wither away. The planet's gonna get weaker.

"I can't just leave 'em be. I'm recruitin' new members! Me, Tifa, Cloud . . . and Aerith too. Kid? How 'bout you?"

"I'm in," Cris said firmly.

From then on, Barret, Cloud, Red XIII, and Tifa took the frontlines in their battles. They took the most damage, and dealt it out, while Aerith and Cris supported them from the background. Cris darted in to steal when she could, steadily expanding her repertoire of spells as she came across more, varied materia. She copied enemy skills and turned them against their wielders. She was the keeper of the curative items; she kept everyone alive and standing during battle. The others thanked her, seeming genuine, when she healed their ailments and wounds, and Cris was happy. She had earned her place with them as a contributing member, rather than as a tagalong.

She saw, with blinding clarity, Tifa's drive to keep Cloud with them before he drifted off like one of his namesake, the sadness in Aerith's eyes whenever she looked at him. They were all grieving, each in their own way, over their pasts, friends lost, bad choices made. Just like her.

In the night, she would lie awake with her thoughts, confused and troubled. What was the difference between what AVALANCHE had done, and what Shin-Ra had done, to the city of Midgar? If she thought Barret was right, should she also thank that cocky, redheaded Turk for setting the bomb?

Part of Cris reveled in her freedom, following the bright presence that was Cloud. If she ever grieved for her father, she soon forgot it as they traveled and she saw more of the world, because her father, too, had worked for Shin-Ra, Inc. He had been one of the bad guys from the start.

And then, when they left Midgar behind, trekked across the wasteland that surrounded the circular city, and she witnessed the dead, withered earth caused by the mako reactors, Red XIII spoke to her.

"This is your legacy," he said.

"I know." Cris traced the city's skyline with her eyes, and then turned her back on it. "I've never seen true sunshine, or real grass, or this sky. It's so blue. It hurts to look at it."

Red XIII shook his mane again, flaming tail swishing, but all he said was, "I'm going back to my hometown. I'll go with you as far as that."

Red XIII wasn't the only one to join them in their quest. In the forests outside of Junon, a short, hyperactive girl ambushed them. Although Barret never let them travel in a big group, Cloud, Cris, and Tifa defeated her easily.

"Man. I can't believe I lost," she said, shaking her head. Then she screamed at Cloud, "You spiky-headed jerk! One more time, let's go one more time!"

Cris burst out laughing. That was the exact same thing she'd called Cloud. He gave her a blue-green-eyed look and shrugged.

The girl ninja looked taken aback at her reaction, but she recovered swiftly. "Thinkin' of running away? Stay and fight! _Fight_, I said! C'mon. What's the matter? You're pretty scared of me, huh?"

"Petrified," Cloud said, a smile dancing around his mouth.

"Hmm, just as I thought," she said, flicking the tail of her headband over her bare shoulder. "What do you expect with my skills? Good luck to you too. If you feel up to it, we can go another round. Later!" She started to run off, but then stopped and turned. "I'm really gonna leave! _Really_!"

They were all smiling, now. Tifa called, "Wait a second!"

The girl put her hands on her hips. "What is it, you still have somethin' for me? Hmmm. So is that it?" She clapped her hands. "I know you want my help because I'm so good! You want me to go with you?"

"That's right," Cris said. She liked this gutsy girl. She asked permission silently of Cloud, and he shrugged again.

"Thought so," laughed the black-haired girl. "You put me in a spot. Hmm, what should I do? But if you want me that bad, I can't refuse . . . All right! I'll go with you!"

Cloud's patience seemed to have come to an end. Swinging the huge sword onto his back, he walked away. "Let's hurry on."

Sharing a grin with Tifa, Cris turned and followed Cloud.

"Hey," the girl said in disbelief. "_Hey_! Wait! I haven't even told you my name. I'm Yuffie! Good to meetcha!"

None of them heard her pause and snicker.

"Just as I planned. Now all I have to do is a little this and a little that."

Still laughing to herself, she shouldered her shuriken and raced after Cloud's retreating form.


	16. Part IV, Chapter 1

Materia hunting became a game between Cris and Yuffie, to see who could gather more.

One evening, when Red XIII skulked into the surrounding grasslands to make sure their campsite was safe from attack, the two girls set up the tent and started the fire. Cris enjoyed traveling with Red XIII, mostly because all he had to do was make his animal presence known and local wildlife tended to steer clear. In Barret's company, pitched battle was a given; the big man preferred to flush monsters out of the earth rather than spend a quiet night asleep.

"I don't see why you need it," Cris complained, having been on the losing end of a race to snatch up a pink orb. "You can fight."

"True," Yuffie said, whiffing a few rapid punches at an imaginary enemy. Their campfire traced the blades of her shuriken in molten gold. "It's no use whining. Finders keepers."

"Oh, shut up," Cris said. She lobbed her backpack into their tent, took the newsboy cap off, and sighed in relief as her red-blonde curls fell around her shoulders. Rubbing her scalp, she tossed the hat into the tent, too.

"Say, why do you dress like that, anyway?"

Cris looked up. Yuffie put her hands on her hips. She wore a pair of shorts with the button perpetually undone and a cropped sweater, which showed a daring amount of her tiny midriff. Cris shrugged.

"Why not?" she countered.

Yuffie sat down next to her and wrapped her arms around her bare knees, staring into the flames. "I dunno. I just think it's weird. I thought you were a boy, at first."

"It's safer to be a boy," Cris muttered.

"Well," Yuffie said, her dark eyes switching from Cris to the fire and back, "I guess it's okay as long as you don't get any ideas. I mean, I know I'm gorgeous and everything, but I'm not interested in other girls, okay?"

"What?" Cris stared at her, realized she was serious, and burst out laughing. She made a suggestive move and said throatily, "Are you sure? I could show you _such_ a good time."

Yuffie failed at keeping a straight face. "Oh, _gawd_! That's disgusting! Get away from me!"

The two girls fell over, laughing hysterically, throwing lewd jokes back and forth until their giggles drowned out all other sounds in the night. It felt so good to laugh. It reminded Cris of the girls at the Honey Bee Inn, which, she realized for the first time, had given her a home. But this was so much better, under the open sky, smelling the river and the wet soil, listening to the breeze ruffle the grass – even slapping at insects that hummed annoyingly in her face. The ground felt warm and alive beneath her cheek as she lay there, laughing.

"You're really not hot for me?" Yuffie wheezed.

"_No_! Oh, I can't breathe . . ."

"If you two are finished?" The deep, calm voice floated out of the darkness, followed by a golden pinprick of light. Red XIII's bestial face emerged, the firelight gleaming off the golden bracelets around his legs, sliding over the sleek red-orange fur and the Roman numeral thirteen tattooed on one shoulder. "You'll draw everything nasty down on us if you keep up that noise."

"Sorry," Cris murmured, biting her lips. She made the mistake of catching Yuffie's eye, though, and they both dissolved in giggles again.

Red XIII sighed, and then sat primly down, exactly like a housecat would have. "We should reach Gongaga by tomorrow afternoon."

"And we'll meet up with that spiky-headed jerk there, right?" Yuffie stretched her thin arms for the sky, rotated one shoulder. "I can't believe we got thrown in the desert prison. My neck still hurts from those stupid machines of Dio's."

"That's the second time I've been in jail since I met Cloud," Cris groaned. "It better not become a habit."

One of Red XIII's ears flicked, but he made no comment.

"So," Yuffie said slyly as they ate their dinner, "do you like Cloud, then?"

Cris choked. "God, _no_. What gave you that idea?"

Yuffie shrugged, but she raised her eyebrows as if asking for more.

"Wanna know how I met him?" Cris chucked her empty plate onto the ground. "In a brothel, where I worked. That's why I'm dressed like this."

Yuffie's mouth dropped open.

"Yeah, that's right. I worked in a brothel. My dad sold me off." Cris laughed shortly, without humor. "I guess you could say I'm not interested in men, either. Let's just . . . get some sleep, all right?"

She stood up, but couldn't bring herself to hide away in the tent, and after a moment, she stormed into the night. The air was cold after the heat of the fire. She hugged herself, staring into the vast blackness between the stars.

Soft steps approached, padding in the grass, too heavy for Yuffie. Red XIII came up beside her, the top of his head on level with her waist.

"Perhaps I am not the only one who does not like two-legged things," he said, "but it is not right to hate oneself."

"Oh, I don't," Cris said, more sharply than she meant to, because she was trying not to cry. "I have no problem with who and what I am. It's the rest of the human population I hate. I realize that makes me a sociopath. I've even killed people, so I've got the credentials."

"Aerith," he said, and then paused. "She would not like to hear you say such things."

"I'm not a child," she growled. "Don't talk to me like that, like you know everything. You don't."

"I know that you love the earth. I respect that." He shook his mane, bangles clacking. "Aerith pats me on the nose sometimes. I hate being treated like a child, but I also like the attention. She is kind, for a human. It would not be the worst thing in the world to follow her example."

_What, by patting you on the nose_? The thought surfaced, materialized on her tongue, but she stopped herself in time. What was the use in spewing poison at him? He was only trying to help.

"Yeah, well, we'll see them tomorrow," she said at last. "Let's get some sleep."


	17. Part IV, Chapter 2

In apology for ordering them imprisoned for a crime they did not commit, Dio, the owner of Gold Saucer, had gifted Cloud with a buggy that could traverse the desert sands around what was left of Corel. Cloud, driving the buggy, should have arrived before them, but Cris was more concerned with getting out of the forest alive than where he might be.

They arrived in Gongaga at a dead run, Cris still tingling all over from her transformation into a frog by a mischievous touch me. A maiden's kiss pill had restored her, but it wasn't an experience she was anxious to repeat. Their feet sank into a stretch of the same dead, withered soil that surrounded Midgar, before they skidded to a halt on an overgrown pathway.

Red XIII grimaced, exposing his teeth. "It stinks here."

Yuffie sniffed, and put her hands on her hips. "I don't smell anything."

"The reactor." Red XIII turned his nose toward the village. "Something went wrong."

"You can _smell_ that?"

Cris wasn't listening. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled under a fallen log, emerging triumphantly with bits of bark stuck to her hat and a yellow materia clutched in her fist.

"Hey!" Yuffie exclaimed, running over. "That's not fair!"

"Finders keepers," Cris taunted. She held the materia in her fingertips, turning it in the sunlight. "I wonder what this one does."

"Don't equip it if you don't know!"

"There's no other way to find out, is there?" Cris reasoned, replacing her old fire materia in her armlet with the shiny new yellow one. "I don't think it's defensive. It feels more offensive."

"Says the girl who doesn't have a weapon," Yuffie groaned, slapping her forehead.

"That's easily remedied." Cris leaned over and picked up a stick from the ground, roughly the size and shape of a baseball bat. She took a stance, waving the stick over her shoulder, and grinned at her friend. "Care to try me?"

A huge grin split Yuffie's face. "Oh, you are so _on_," she said, twirling her shuriken.

"Wait!" Red XIII barked. "Is someone there?"

With a flicker, the ninja vanished, and Red XIII bounded silently away. Cris scrambled after them. All three of them crouched behind a tree at the side of the road. Two figures strolled around the curve.

Black suits. Sunglasses. A tall, bald, dark-skinned man and a lanky redhead.

Turks.

The Turks stopped, and the redhead yawned as if bored, rubbing his neck. Cris shrank lower, until all she could see was their profiles through the leaves of a bush. She bit her lip, trying not to breathe too loudly and give away their position; Red XIII's hot flank pressed against her back, giving her courage.

"Hey, Rude," the redhead – Reno – said, a lazy grin pulling up the corners of his mouth as he looked up at his partner. "Who do you like?"

The other turned away, his stoic expression never changing, but Reno chuckled. His crazy shock of red-dyed hair trailed tendrils in his face. "What are you getting so embarrassed about? Come on. Who do you like?"

After an eternity of a pause, the taller Turk muttered, "Tifa."

A giggle got stuck in Cris's throat, and with wide eyes she looked around at Yuffie, whose cheeks were slowly turning pink from suppressed laughter.

One of Reno's eyebrows went up. "That's a tough one. But, poor Elena. She – you . . ."

Elena. The newest Turk, promoted when Tifa had put Reno out of commission by breaking his arm.

"No," said Rude, shaking his head. "She likes Tseng."

"I never knew that!" Reno chuckled. "But Tseng likes that Ancient . . ."

Once again, Cris wasn't listening. Reno had a nice voice, lazy but full of humor. Sure, she and Yuffie found a lot to laugh about, and Aerith was always smiling, but the others – too much pain resided in them. Cris smiled faintly, waiting to see if he would laugh again.

And then she stiffened, her fingers digging into her impromptu bat. _What the_ hell _was she thinking_? That man out there was a Turk, who followed Tseng's orders.

Who had murdered all of those people in Sector Seven.

The sounds of someone running down the path abruptly broke in on her thoughts, and then a small, blonde woman crashed through the brush. Despite her mad dash, her black suit was immaculate. Elena.

"They're here!" she shouted. "They're really here!"

Red XIII let his breath out in a huff, and his flame-tipped tail brushed across Cris's jaw. She tensed, also. Had they been discovered?

"Then it's time," Reno said with a shrug, as if he spent every day hanging around on a deserted road talking about who liked whom. "Rude, don't go easy on them even though they're girls."

"Don't worry, I'll do my job."

Elena's head bobbed. "Then, we're counting on you. I'll report to Tseng!"

She ran off, and immediately, Cloud rounded the turn in the path, his brows lowered. He watched Elena go, and then his blue-green eyes zeroed in on Reno and Rude.

No. Cris, Yuffie, and Red XIII hadn't been seen.

Reno stuck his hand in his pocket, and gripped the electro mag-rod in the other, as self-assured and cocky as Cloud could be, and then grinned. "It's been a while. Payback time for what you did in Sector Seven."

"Out of our way," Cloud said, just as Tifa and Aerith pushed onto the path and backed him.

Reno's grin dissolved, and he narrowed his eyes. "I don't like being taken for a fool."

Dangerous. He was dangerous. So was Cloud. Cris realized, suddenly, that she didn't want them to fight.

"That's as far as you go," Rude said.

He opened the battle, sending an offensive spell at Cloud, but Cris was faster. Her big guard spell hit Cloud and the others first, a useful skill she'd picked up from the beachplugs that lived on the shore. Barrier and MBarrier rose up around her friends, who all started to glow slightly and blur as their time sped up, and Rude's attack bounced off.

Reno seemed to be ready for interference from the sidelines, however. He sent a blast of light at her that shattered the tree into a million shards.


	18. Part IV, Chapter 3

Her jacket hitched painfully under her armpits when Red XIII clenched it in his jaws and leapt away from the disintegrating tree. He deposited Cris at a safe distance, frisked around, and charged into the melee.

"Aerith, go after Elena," Cloud was saying as he whirled the huge sword and deflected another devastating blast of light. "We'll keep them here."

"Find out how they knew we were coming!" Tifa called. She blocked a weak punch from Rude, who seemed determined not to hurt her.

"You can count on me," Aerith said, and she and Red XIII darted away, much to the anger of the two Turks, but Yuffie slung her shuriken at them. It spun lethally around their heads, halting their attempt to stop the Ancient and the talking beast.

"Ouch," Cris huffed, wiping her hands down her legs to dislodge pebbles and dirt. Her stick, that she'd picked up as a joke weapon, lay not far from her. She grabbed it and then stood there, uncertain of what she should do. This wasn't like fighting monsters. The Turks packed materia, too. She doubted she'd be able to get another spell cast in time to do any good, and besides, her trusty fire materia was in her pants pocket, not the armlet.

Reno cracked Tifa in the temple, and she crumpled. "Gotcha," he said.

Rude's mouth dropped open, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he grabbed a fistful of Reno's jacket and shoved him.

"We're on the clock, yo!" Reno snarled at him, disengaging himself. "Do your job!"

"I am!" Rude growled back. Ducking, he barreled into the smaller Cloud and they both tumbled to the ground. Rude somersaulted to his feet before Cloud could regain his, and his fist shot out, catching Yuffie in the stomach. She gasped, going to her knees.

Cris, horrified at what was happening to her friends in spite of their haste status, didn't hear Reno come up behind her.

"This is thanks for ruining my jacket earlier, yo," he said.

He raised the mag-rod. Without thinking, Cris swung the stick.

The new yellow materia flared, and the stick and the mag-rod both shattered as the force of the deathblow engaged, knocking Reno and Cris flat several feet apart. Her arms ached with the recoil, all the way from her wrists into her shoulder joints. A thundering headache erupted behind her eyes.

Dazed, Reno sat up. Blood, free-flowing from under his hair, coated one side of his face in red, dripped from his chin, and soaked into his white shirt.

His eyes were blue.

"Let's go!" Rude was there, pulling Reno's arm over his shoulder. They retreated, quickly, Rude half-dragging his partner, and Cloud, swearing under his breath, let them go.

A terrible quaking started up in Cris, claiming her bit by bit until her teeth chattered. With numbed fingers, she dug the deathblow materia out of her armlet. It didn't sparkle in her hand.

What would have happened if she had hit Reno instead of the mag-rod? She didn't think she could have withstood killing someone in such a hands-on way.

"Tifa! Tifa!" Cloud's sword clattered on the gravel as he went to one knee and lifted her limp form. "Wake up!"

"I think you better take that," Cris said unsteadily, thrusting the deathblow at a winded Yuffie. Then, she bent over Tifa and Cloud, concentrating on the curative powers of the restore materia, which she had paired with a blue all materia. Her shaking eased as the magic did its job on all of them at the same time.

Tifa opened her dark eyes. "How could they know we were coming here?"

"They followed us," Cloud said darkly.

"But there weren't any signs of it," Cris put in, looking to Yuffie for help. Yuffie nodded so vigorously that her short black hair bounced.

"Then, that means . . ." Cloud pulled Tifa to her feet.

"A spy?" she exclaimed, reading his face. "No way."

"I don't even want to think that there's a spy. I trust everyone."

Somberly, they trudged up the path, into Gongaga Village.

"I told you so!" Yuffie hissed, poking Cris in the side.

Cris slapped at her. "I _know_, okay?"

"Gawd, what's the matter with you? Be that way, then."

Yuffie ran forward, to walk with Tifa and Cloud, leaving Cris alone. Cris sighed, rubbing her arms. She didn't have much to say when, much later, they all gathered around a campfire and opened discussion. She sat between the large figures of Barret and Cait Sith, the stuffed cat puppet riding a robotic mog that they'd inadvertently picked up as a member of their group while in Gold Saucer.

"Big, large, huge materia?" Cloud said, kicking another log onto the fire so that sparks drifted in Cris's eyes, repeating what Scarlet had said while they spied on her and Tseng at the ruined reactor. "An ultimate weapon? The perfect weapon? Just what are the Shin-Ra up to?"

Nobody had any answers aside from _Nothing Good_. Aerith and Tifa were unusually quiet, also, and if Cris had been less rattled by the events of the day, she might have noticed. However, she sat in her own cocoon of confusion, reflecting that she had traded one set of problems for another.

She would never regret her escape from the Honey Bee Inn and Don Corneo's bed. Every moment of her life she'd wasted dancing for the hordes of gil-tossing men she wished she could trade for just one more night in her home, in her own bed, falling asleep with one of her friends on the other side of the phone. She would never regard Shin-Ra as anything other than her enemy, even though the man Cloud was after, Sephiroth, had killed President Shinra, because Shinra's spoiled son had taken over the company. Rufus Shinra was terrorizing the world, and using his father's Turks to do it. She would never look on Tseng with anything other than the deepest loathing.

She hated the Turks. She hated _men_.

So why couldn't she stop thinking about Reno?


	19. Part IV, Chapter 4

They all traveled together after that. Cris thought it might have been the extra weight that caused the buggy to break down when Cloud drove it farther into the rugged, mountainous area northeast of Gongaga. Fortunately, they were near some sort of settlement, and they all agreed to climb the stairs cut directly into the cliff wall and see if they could get some help. The air was thin, but it smelled different to Cris, somehow. Cleaner, maybe? She couldn't put her finger on it.

And then, at the entrance to the settlement, they found out two things: One, they had reached Cosmo Canyon, and two, Red XIII's real name. Nanaki.

"Here is where I was . . . I mean, this is my hometown. My tribe were protectors of those who appreciate this beautiful canyon and the planet. My brave mother fought and died here, but my cowardly father left her. I am the last of my race."

Cris averted her eyes, looking out over the canyons. She wasn't the only one with family problems, it seemed.

"Cowardly father?" Cloud asked.

Red XIII's ears flattened, and he spoke to his front paws. "Yes. My father was a wastrel. And so the mission I inherited from my ancestors, is to protect this place. My journey ends here."

"Hey! Nanaki! You're home!" someone shouted.

"Coming, Grandpa!" Red XIII dashed away, his bangles clacking.

"That's perfect," Tifa said, beaming. "Why don't we take a break too? We can meet back here in a while, okay?"

After a moment, Cloud strode after Red XIII. Tifa deflated a little when he went, but she and Aerith began talking together. Despite their unspoken rivalry, Cris knew they were fast friends. It was kind of hard not to like Aerith. She was the sort of person that made everybody feel good.

Cris turned to Yuffie. "You don't really think he'll leave us, do you?"

"It's not my problem," she said with a shrug. "There's something else I need to do. Toodles!"

And she ran off.

At that point, Cris didn't feel like hanging out with anybody. Alone, she wandered farther into Cosmo Canyon, drawn by the light of a huge bonfire, burning steadily beneath the midday sun. A small boy said to her, "This fire is called 'Cosmo Candle.' It has burned for generations. It's a holy flame that protects this canyon."

Cris sat on the ground in front of the Candle, hugging her knees to her chest, and stared moodily into it. The tips of the flames were too bright to look at for long, and so she focused on the darker orange at the heart.

Orange, like Red XIII's coat. Cris sighed. Cloud. Barret. Tifa. Aerith. Yuffie. Even Cait Sith, whoever he really was behind the controls and strings of the stuffed animatronic cat – these were her friends.

She'd already lost so much. She didn't want to lose any more. Especially not a friend.

They departed several days later, all of them renewed. They'd learned loads from the elders, of the Lifestream and the Cetra, and the undead Gi tribe, but it was time to go.

"They said they finished fixin' the buggy," Barret called. He jogged toward them through the early morning mist as they stood at the top of the stairs, his battered dog tags swinging across his chest.

Cloud nodded. "Shall we get going?"

"So this is it, Red XIII," Aerith said sadly, echoing Cris's unspoken thought.

"That's just the way it goes," Barret said, and then he turned and looked up at Bugenhagen's observatory. "You came in handy at times."

But then, as they turned to go, a red-orange blur shot past them, whirled on the stairs, claws raking into the stone, and then gave them a fang-filled grin. "Wait for me! I'm coming too!"

Cris couldn't help herself. She ran down the stairs and threw her arms around his neck, laughing. He barked, sounding surprised, and she quickly let go. "Sorry."

Bugenhagen, the elder Red XIII called _Grandpa_, made his way down to them. He said, "Cloud. Please look after Nanaki."

"What happened?"

"I think I grew up a little. That's what happened!" Red XIII said gaily, and he gathered his legs under him and then launched down the staircase, with Cris and Yuffie charging after him.

Better yet, instead of losing a friend the way she'd feared, they gained another fellow-traveler in the small, chilly town of Nibelheim, although Cris couldn't imagine anyone calling Vincent, with his blood-red eyes, gold-plated left arm, and crimson cloak a friend. They rousted him out of a _coffin_, for Godsakes. ("Does he think he's a vampire?" Yuffie snorted, well out of his hearing, though probably not out of range of his gun.) He was very cold and analytical. As he said, he used to be one of the Turks.

Of course, at the mention of the Turks, Cris immediately thought of Reno. She gave Vincent a wide berth, because she didn't want to be reminded of that other guy. Although not thinking clearly, she was aware that she was well on her way to a pathetic crush – where did she think she was, back in high school, scoping out the new boy? It made her insane. Everywhere they went, she kept expecting a Turk or two to pop out of thin air. It drove her so far to distraction that Yuffie gained an elemental and a counter attack materia, and it wasn't until she started using them that Cris noticed. However, after they made their way through Mt. Nibel and nothing of the sort happened, she started to relax again.

One early morning, as their little band of renegades marched at their separate paces through the grasslands, Cloud suddenly exclaimed, "What's _that_?"

Yuffie shaded her eyes from the rising sun with her hands, and Cris tilted her hat back. She could sort of see a town, with something tower-like tilting badly behind the trees.

Cloud had better eyesight. "A rusty old rocket. Wonder what they'd make something that huge for?"

"Only one way to find out," Tifa said reasonably.


	20. Part IV, Chapter 5

Nothing anyone said could get Cris in that rocket. Disabled or not, it was meant to fly, and she wasn't. The ladder went up a _long_ way, and the rocket itself looked none too stable in its broken, bent clamps. She waited for Cloud on the ground.

He came back down with an older man who had a cigarette clamped between his teeth and a scowl fit to rival Barret's on his face. He was dressed like a pilot, complete with goggles, blue leather coat, and stained khakis, and he stormed past all of them without a word. He must be the Captain everyone in Rocket Town was talking about, the one who was supposed to be the first man in space, when Shin-Ra, Inc. was still a weapons development company all those years ago.

"Come on. He owns a plane we might be able to borrow," Cloud said, and followed him.

She trooped into a house behind the two men, Aerith right behind her. The Captain proceeded to bully a timid, but pretty woman in a lab coat to fix tea for his guests, and then, bursting with nervous energy and temper, stomped out the back door. The pretty woman, Shera, explained the story of the Shin-Ra No. 26.

"He pushed the Emergency Engine Shut Down switch, aborting the mission, to save my life," she said in her soft voice, still standing by the stove. "After that, the Space Program was cut back and the launch was canceled. It's my fault his dream was destroyed. That's why it's all right. I don't care what the Captain says, I'll live my life for him."

The Captain came back in, and Cris was glad she saw him before he hollered, "Shera! You still haven't served 'em tea!"

Shera blushed. "I . . . I'm sorry," she said to the tea kettle, fussing with the stove's dials.

The Captain flung himself into one of the chairs and hoisted one leg onto the table. Then he glared up at them. "Hurry up and sit down! Or ain't my hospitality good enough for you?"

No one had a thing to say. Cris remained standing; she didn't want to get any closer to that volatile old man. As if he'd forgotten about them, he leaned his head in his hand and started tapping his foot.

"They're late. Where is Rufus?"

Cloud blinked, his eyes suddenly burning. Rufus? _President Shinra_?

The front door banged open and a portly fellow in a wrinkled brown suit waddled in. "Hey-_hey_! Long time no see! So Cid, how ya been?"

The Captain, Cid, hopped to his feet, and his chair fell over backward, which he gallantly ignored. "Well, if it ain't fat man, Palmer. How long were you figurin' on keepin' me waitin'?" He ran around the table. "So? When's the Space Program gonna start up again?"

"Hey-hey!" Palmer said, shifting his feet. "I don't know. The President's outside, so why don't you ask him?"

"Damn it! Good for nothing, fat asshole!" Cid snarled, and he slammed open the front door and disappeared into the yard. Cloud pushed out after him, and a heartbeat later, Vincent glided out too. Cait Sith bounced out last.

Palmer waited perhaps thirty seconds, sweat shining on his hairless head, as Shera, Cris, Yuffie, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and Red XIII stared at him, and then he made a break for the back door.

_Moves fast for a fat guy_, Cris thought.

"Uh, excuse me," Shera said. She straightened her glasses. "This way."

She led them through the house (Cris, grinning, pointed out to Yuffie a car parked in one of the rooms, and the other girl started laughing), and into the back yard. Shera shut the door. "You wanted to use the Tiny Bronco, right?"

"Yes . . ." Aerith said.

"I believe Palmer's going to take it. Why don't you talk to him? I will bring your friends."

They headed through the yard to a fenced-in pasture, and the pink prop-driven plane parked there. Palmer was already futzing around in the cockpit.

"Hmm," he muttered. "Why do I have to do this? I'm the head of the Space Program."

Barret seemed to be ready to fill Palmer, and the plane, full of bullet holes, but Cris had a better idea. She put a hand on his arm, and then walked forward. "We'll be taking Tiny Bronco."

"I've seen you somewhere before," Palmer said, startled. He scratched his head, squinting down at her. Then, his eyes widened. "I know! The Shin-Ra building! When the President was killed! _Security_!"

Cris cast her spell, and one of the equipped red materia glowed with devilish light; she summoned the antlered god Odin, who arrived astride his six-legged steed Sleipnir. Palmer was more cunning than she expected, however, and he managed to avoid the gunge lance, although it knocked him clean off the plane. Tiny Bronco, propellers whirring, slowly turned, and then its engines engaged just as Odin returned to his sleep in the materia.

Out of nowhere, Cloud appeared, setting a boot on one wheel strut and launching himself onto the plane. Everyone scrambled aboard, finding finger- and toeholds wherever they could. Cris latched onto a wing with Red XIII on one side of her and Yuffie on the other. Feeling distinctly green, she clung to the wing with all of her might.

"It won't stop!" Tifa shrieked, somewhere on the other side of the plane.

"Forget it!" Cloud shouted. "Get in!"

With Cid desperately trying to reach the controls of his plane, Tiny Bronco took off. It looped sickeningly around the rocket, and then buzzed President Rufus and his guards, who opened fire. Cris buried her face in the wing; oh, God, why couldn't she just stay on the _ground_? And then, Tiny Bronco lurched, and she heard something crackling above the fierce wind of flight.

"Shit!" Cid roared. "The tail's been hit! This's gonna be a big splash. Hold onto your drawers and don't piss in 'em!"


	21. Part V, Chapter 1

"Where are we?" Cris asked miserably. Her fingers hurt, from hanging onto the plane's wing so hard. Her ribs hurt, from having all the breath crushed from her. Crashing onto the ocean had not only felt like belly-flopping onto asphalt, it had also sent up a shockingly cold wave big enough to soak them all. Red XIII was looking particularly bedraggled, with his mane and the feathers tied into it plastered to his body. She raised her head, wiping seawater off her face, and looked around.

It was beautiful. It always seemed brighter here on the water than anywhere else, more colorful somehow, in the infinite shades of dazzling blue both above and below.

Cid, dangling upside-down by Tiny Bronco's smoking turbine, paused to squint across the horizon. "We've come east," he said gruffly. "Easiest thing to do'd be to return to Rocket Town."

"No." It was almost too quiet to hear over the lapping waves, but when Cloud spoke, everybody listened.

"Shit, knew it wouldn't be that easy. That damn fool President's still there. Shera'd better not let him in my house," Cid grumbled. Then he pointed with one dripping glove. "There's land thataway, not that it'll do ya any good. She won't fly anymore."

"Can't we use it as a boat?" Cloud asked. His previously spiky hair was flattened, and it made him look younger than even Yuffie.

Cid scrubbed his hand through his own pale hair, and checked his sopping pack of cigarettes. "Damn it! Do whatever you want!"

"Cid," Cloud said, a note of apology in his voice, "what are you going to do now?"

"Dunno." His gruff voice was muffled, and there came the sound of banging from the engine. "I'm history with the Shin-Ra and I've given up on the town."

"How 'bout your wife? How 'bout Shera?"

Cid righted himself. "Wife? Don't make me laugh! Just thinkin' 'bout marryin' her gives me the chills. What're you guys gonna do?"

"We're going after a man named Sephiroth. We'll have to get Rufus of the Shin-Ra someday too."

"I don't know about any of that, but . . ." Cid picked his way between Barret and Aerith to slide into the cockpit. "What the hell? Sign me up! Glad to be aboard, numbskulls!"

Cloud's face darkened. "Numbskulls?"

"Yeah. Anyone stupid enough to go up against Shin-Ra nowadays, has _gotta_ be a numbskull! I like it!" He shrugged. "So, where we headed?"

They ended up cruising further east, until the collective whining of the girls made Cid park Tiny Bronco at a small strip of beach. It was mid-afternoon by that point. Barret and Cloud lowered the mechanical body of Cait Sith to the sand, and the waterlogged cat shivered, valiantly trying to operate the mog, which was on the fritz. Leaning against his precious plane, Cid attempted to coax one of his wet cigarettes to light; Tifa and Aerith were fixing their hair and clothes; Vincent, who seemed impervious to everything, stood by himself, where the waves lapped at his feet; Cris removed her jacket, just as Red XIII planted all four paws and shook himself vigorously, soaking her down all over again. She was so busy yelling at him that although she heard Yuffie talking, the meaning of her words didn't sink in until later.

"I know this area pretty well," she was saying. "It gets pretty tough past here. Better get ready."

"Are you trying to con us again?" Tifa asked suspiciously.

Cris looked up. Yuffie had stolen much of their gil that day they fought her in the forest, and had spent it all before anyone noticed.

"No! It's _really_ tough . . ."

Yuffie squeaked, interrupting herself, and a hard male voice shouted, "There they are, catch 'em!"

Red XIII shoved Cris back, snarling, and she landed on her butt in a spray of sand, losing her jacket. Two Shin-Ra infantrymen in blue uniforms and masked helmets raced down to the shore, guns trained on the party. Everyone froze.

Except Cid. He dropped his lighter and brought his spear to bear. "What, the Shin-Ra?"

"Hey, that's not them!" one of the soldiers exclaimed. "These are the other guys from before!"

"Yuffie!" Cris whirled on the smaller girl, but Yuffie backed away, her big eyes growing rounder.

"I don't know! I have nothing to do with this one!"

"This one?" Tifa stamped her foot, fury written all over her face. "Did you just say '_this_ one'? So you _were_ trying to pull something off!"

"No, umm, uh . . ." Yuffie stammered.

"What should we do?" asked one Shin-Ra soldier.

"Get them!" the other blustered. "Grab them and ask questions later!"

Like the ninja she was, Yuffie streaked past their attack and the soldiers engaged with the men of the party. Red XIII bounded in, distracting the soldier closest to Cris, and so she simply dashed after Yuffie.

Her longer legs and materia-enhanced speed should have let her catch Yuffie, but something was wrong; she lagged behind the other girl, finally losing her at the end of a rope and plank bridge that swayed and jounced and threatened to toss her off. Cris stopped, feeling like her stomach was around her knees, and collapsed on the grass, waiting for the world to stop heaving.

A pack of thunderbirds weren't waiting. Lightning cracked down around Cris, tearing up the grass and great chunks of rock, one of which sliced her cheek open. Her fingers flew to the cut, and blood welled up between them, hot and sticky. The birds screamed their hunger.

"Take that!" she yelled, calling upon her mastered fire materia.

Nothing happened, except the thunderbirds attacked again. Powerful bolts of lightning hit the ground, the surrounding rocks. And then one of the birds dived, cruel serrated beak aimed straight at her heart.

Cris knew, right then, that she was dead.


	22. Part V, Chapter 2

She heard the cocking of the gun first, so that ruled out Barret, and then three eardrum-puncturing blasts felled the thunderbirds.

Vincent swept by her, his tattered crimson cloak swirling around his ankles like something alive. He ejected the spent shells and wordlessly began reloading.

"Thank you," Cris said. Or thought she said. She couldn't hear her own voice yet over the ringing in her abused ears.

Vincent's red eyes slid toward her and then away, his dispassionate expression never changing, chin buried in the high collar of his cloak.

She sighed. Then, she checked her armlet. Checked it again, stuck her fingers in the empty slots, her breath constricting with rage. "She's done it to us again! I'm never going to forgive her! She took all my materia!"

"So I noticed," Vincent said quietly.

"Yours too?"

He nodded, long black bangs falling over the red bandanna and in his eyes.

"Forgive, nothing," Cris growled, suddenly very much aware of how vulnerable she was without her magic. "I'm going to _kill_ her."

"It's dangerous. Don't run off alone," Vincent said, holstering the Sniper CR.

_Yes, Dad_. God, who did the vampire think he was? Cris stuck her tongue out at his broad back.

The rest of the group wasn't in much better moods, when she returned to the beach on Vincent's heels. Cloud decided they should split up, some to go after Yuffie, and some to remain with Tiny Bronco in case more Shin-Ra showed up. Cris didn't ask permission. When Vincent and Red XIII joined Cloud, she did, too. "She went north," was the only help she could give, however. If monsters attacked, she ran. And dodged. And ran some more. Her friends freaked her out a little; even without materia, they were formidable.

"Wutai," Cloud said shortly when they entered the gates of a foreign village. Majestic white buildings rose up on all sides of them, connected by arched bridges over serenely flowing channels, roofed with curved red tiles. The pathways under their feet were crushed white gravel, and gardens bordered every building. Flowery scents filled her nose. It was a pretty place, but Cris, who had learned a lot about veneer in the Honey Bee Inn, could see that it was a poor village beneath all the beauty.

No one they asked, however, could (or would) tell them about Yuffie. Nor would the weapon shop sell them anything. It was infuriating.

Miraculously, Cris found a blue materia orb near the item shop, but Yuffie swooped in like a crow, snatched the materia right out of her hand, and vanished again. Red XIII thrust his head into Cris's hip to keep her walking, or else she might have stood there creatively swearing after the other girl all day.

Cloud's anger, on the other hand, leached all expression from him, until he resembled a much-smaller Vincent. It was scary. He slapped open the doors to the Turtle's Paradise Pub and strode in.

"Y . . . you? How did you get here?" spluttered the Turk, Elena.

Cris stopped dead in her tracks, a flush creeping over her face. The pub's dim interior and lazily whirring ceiling fan felt good after the heat and glare outside, and an indoor fountain chuckled merrily in the far corner, surrounded by greenery. But all of her attention was fixed on the low table near the door, and the three people sitting there.

Elena sprang out of her seat. "Never mind that. I guess it's fate that brought us together. Get ready to die!"

Brown eyes snapping, she assumed a fighting stance, which Cloud and the others copied. Several seconds ticked away. Nobody moved.

"Elena, you talk too much," Reno murmured into his glass. He looked pissed – in more ways than one. A pair of curved tattooed lines, the same red as his dyed hair, marked his high cheekbones, one at the outside edge of each eye.

Elena gawked at her boss. "Wh . . . what?"

"What are we doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?" he asked, and then downed his drink. He gave her a stare much like the thunderbirds had earlier given Cris.

"We're taking our vacation and resting up from our work," she answered, meek as a schoolgirl.

Cloud's sword lowered, as did his brows.

"Now," Reno said with a sigh, his blue eyes flicking once to Cloud and then back to his empty glass, which he dropped carelessly on the tabletop, "our vacation is ruined."

His eyelashes were thick and black, and long like a girl's should be. Cris's, not so much, thanks to her gingery-blonde hair. Especially now that she didn't wear makeup anymore, in keeping with her boy's disguise. That wasn't fair.

"B . . . but –"

"Even the booze tastes bad now," Rude muttered. He hadn't raised his shaved head.

Elena deflated. She was really tiny, even for a woman. Delicate and sweet, and not pulling off her hired muscle act. ". . . Sorry." She sat back down, clenching her fists in her lap, and then glared at Cloud. "Hmm, you're lucky all right. Now get out of my sight! The next time we meet I won't be so nice."

"Let's go," Cloud said irritably, returning the sword to his back.

Cris reversed her steps slowly, still struck dumb by the fact that _he_ was here. None of the Turks paid her the slightest attention.

The door opened and shut; the others had left. Reno, grinning, sat back, draping his elbow over the top of his chair and stretching one long leg under the table. "Drink, Rude! How long have we been a team? There have been hard times being a Turk, but all in all, I'm glad I did it. I even got to meet a bunch of wing nuts like you."

A Turk. Cris ran out of the pub.


	23. Part V, Chapter 3

_I don't believe this_.

An hour later, Cris returned to Turtle's Paradise and plopped down on the front steps. At least she'd left her jacket on the coast. She was hot, and thirsty, and utterly alone. How she had lost Cloud and the others, and hadn't managed to catch a _glimpse_ of Yuffie, in a village this small baffled her – there simply weren't that many places her friends could _be_.

She sighed, staring at the ocher-colored mountains behind the village, carved with the faces of serene deities. Da-chao, a child had told her. It was dangerous to climb the faced mountains, because of the monsters. Without her materia, she had no hope of surviving up there.

A bit of blue flickered by the item shop, vibrant against the white, dark green, and red of the village, and Cris narrowed her eyes. Then, she dove into a patch of bushes, blocked from the view of anyone on the path by the steps, the side of the building, and a giant, white, decorative pot. Booted feet crunched through the gravel and then pounded up the steps. Shin-Ra soldiers!

"So our reports were right!" one of them yelled. "He _is_ here on vacation! We've finally found him! Get the Turks here for backup!"

_He, who? Do they mean Cloud_? Cris wondered. She risked raising her head over the edge of the top step. The pub's swinging door hadn't shut all the way, hitched up against the dislodged rug, and she could see the two infantrymen converging on the table near the entrance.

"What a drag," Reno said clearly.

"What was that?" the soldier barked through his masked helmet.

Reno slammed his hand on the table and stood up, the other hand stuffed in his pocket. "Right now we're off duty and can't run off to save your butts."

"We know you're off duty, but –"

"If you knew that, then don't bother us!" he sneered, as if saying _effing idiot_. "Lookin' at you is makin' me sober."

"But you all have orders from headquarters to look for him too!"

Elena seemed to be following the conversation with her eyes, her head turning from her boss to the soldier and back. Cris couldn't tell if Rude was conscious or not, slumped over the way he was. Scowling, Reno sat unsteadily back down.

"All right, that's it!" the infantryman growled. "We'll get him without any help from the Turks, just you see!"

"And don't think that headquarters isn't going to hear about this!" the other one threatened.

Cris ripped a nail ducking out of sight, and she popped her bleeding fingertip in her mouth sourly. The solders ran off. She peeked over the stairs.

"Reno, do you think that was really such a good idea?" Elena asked doubtfully. "I mean is that the way a professional, a Turk would act?"

Reno's voice gentled. "Elena. Don't misunderstand. A pro isn't someone who sacrifices himself for his job. That's just a fool."

"Rude?" she pleaded, but he didn't answer her. He did twitch, though, so Cris knew he was still with the living.

"Well, I don't buy that!" Elena cried. "Goodbye!"

Cris couldn't stop a hissed curse when she plowed into the gravel for the third time, the abused bush shedding a few leaves and twigs over her head, but Elena rushed obliviously down the steps.

Although Cris didn't hear Rude say anything, Reno told him, "Relax. She's not a child. Let her have her way now."

Obviously, this was not the best place to loiter. Cris crept out of the bushes, hesitated, and then followed the black-suited figure of Elena toward the western end of the village. She had nothing better to do, anyway, so why not? They might have been talking about her friends. She tiptoed along, palms growing sweaty and mouth going dry, hoping Elena wouldn't notice her on her tail a block away, and then some men in suits converged on the Turk from both sides of the road.

More Turks? But, no, the style of the suit wasn't the same, and Elena's shriek of fury denoted that these weren't coworkers.

Heart pounding, Cris wedged herself behind some tall red pillars, listening to the short, dirty scuffle.

It ended with: "H . . . hey! Let go of me! You're gonna regret this!"

A pair of the strange suited men jogged right by Cris, holding Elena high like some prized trophy. Cris didn't get a chance to think anything more of this, because she heard Yuffie bellowing at the top of her considerable lungs.

"Let go! I _said_ let _go_! Hey! Who do you think I – _ow_! What're you doin'? Jerk!"

And there came another pair of men, with Yuffie bent between them like a pretzel, her skinny arms held fast but her sneakered feet pedaling at the sky, her head bouncing along close to the ground. Between her captors' legs, she espied Cris.

"_Help_!" she bawled.

"Yuffie! What the hell –?"

So surprised by this turn of events, Cris didn't think to look for anyone else who might be coming up the path, and jumped forward. Someone in a terrible hurry crashed right into her side.

The someone was soft – her elbow sank into him, and his breath whuffed all over her. "Oh, _gross_," she exclaimed, simultaneously raising her sleeve to her nose and looking over her shoulder.

The leering, fat face. The greased mohawk. The hand encrusted with gold rings that clamped painfully on her wrist and jerked her arm, which spun her around. Cris's mind blanked.

"Crystal Bell. You owe me, baby girl," he crooned. "Did you think those clothes could hide you from me?"

No. _No_.

Taking advantage of her unresisting shock, he slammed her backward into the red pillars. Whiplash licked up her neck, pooled in the back of her skull. It felt like the cut on her cheek had reopened, stinging.

_No!_

"Don Corneo. What are you doing here?" she whispered.


	24. Part V, Chapter 4

"I came here for my health," Corneo said delicately, pursing his thick lips. "Shin-Ra isn't too happy with me spilling the beans to you people. I've been on the run ever since."

"They're here," Cristobel said. She meant to sound threatening, but the words came out breathless. Weak. "The Turks are here."

His high-pitched giggle sent another waft of halitosis in her face. "So what? I've finally got a new chicky! Two for one, in fact! And now, you can dance for me. Show me those gorgeous legs."

Cris cringed, trapped against the pillar, Corneo's gut closing the distance between them. Without her materia, she was helpless. Corneo rubbed his hand up her arm, and then with his other hand he popped one of the buttons in her old school shirt.

Seriously. Popped it right off, like the thread was a spider's web. He inserted his hand, and squeezed her breast roughly through the long-sleeved shirt she wore under it.

Bile rose in her throat.

"Get away from me!" she screamed, grabbing the ermine fur of his robe. As hard as she could, she lifted her leg swiftly between his.

It must have been up – God, was he planning to rape her there in the street? – because the move actually hurt her knee. Corneo, his face reddening to match his robe, sagged into her, and then, mercifully, dropped to the ground. She wasted no time, and bolted.

"Get back here, bitch!" he roared.

Cris ran faster. She raced right out of the village, heading for Da-chao, never stopping to look behind her. If she was lucky, that fat idiot wouldn't follow her here. When the ground began to slope steeply upward, she pushed herself harder, taking abrupt turns in the winding mountain path, until her legs – the legs Corneo had praised, damn them! – gave out and she stumbled to a shaky halt. She had her arm clamped so tightly over her chest she could barely breathe.

Filthy. That _filth_had actually touched her.

A sound, gravel crunching behind her, made her whirl.

It wasn't Corneo.

It was a slavering foulander. Out of the bushes, a second one approached, as tall as a deer but as carnivorous as Red XIII. They studied her out of their flat, emotionless eyes, with the vertical, goat-like pupils. One of them restlessly pawed the ground, claws raking deep furrows in the rocks.

Her muscles locked up as she faced them, these two beasts that could so easily kill and eat her. They made no attempt to do that, though. They stood there, their red, masklike faces turned toward her, swaying so that their headdresses flashed in the sunlight.

Cris couldn't take it anymore. She turned and ran, blindly, her hands slapping against a cliff face. A shadow beckoned her, yawning, pouring forth intense heat. _Maybe the foulanders won't go in there_, her frightened brain told her. She tripped and sprawled inside, scrambled to her feet, and ran further in. A dull light painted the tunnel red, and she followed it until she came up against a veritable wall of flame gushing out of the rock. She fell over with a cry, her arms protecting her face, and when she rolled over she found her sleeves smoking.

But the foulanders _hadn't_ followed her.

Rude discovered her there close to sunset, huddled in a cooler corner of the furnace-caves, her face and clothes soot-smudged. After one of his interminable pauses, he asked her, politely, to come with him, and she, out of options, did.

They approached Reno at the mouth of the cave, who was shifting a couple of dead bodies off the path. Men in suits. Corneo's new henchmen. Cris stared down at their slack faces, uncaring.

"Yo," Reno said, straightening. He cast a questioning glance at Rude, and then said, "Kid, you look like crap."

When the adrenalin had drained out of her, it left her feeling empty, hollow, thirsty, hungry, and tired. She gazed at her boots and shrugged. It had been a _long_ day.

"Where did you find him?" Reno asked.

"In the cave," Rude said. He paused, again, as if he had more to say, but Reno went on, sounding like he had something in his mouth.

"Hey, didn't that girl take your materia? You've got a pair, coming up here alone, yo."

Cris raised her head. He was searching his pockets, and had a packet of bandages between his teeth. "Here, this should help."

Automatically, she reached to take the offered bandages and tiny plastic bottle of antiseptic. She peeked at him from under the brim of her hat. He actually carried this kind of stuff around? It would have been easier to equip restore materia. Numbly, she applied some of the antiseptic to the gash on her cheek. "Thanks."

"What's your name, yo?"

". . . Cris."

"Well, for now, we agreed not to bother those other guys. I guess this counts." Reno didn't seem capable of standing still for more than three seconds; he bounced on the balls of his feet, swung his arms, and grinned at Rude. "So? Are we ready?"

Rude nodded.

"Then go. You know what to do." Reno grimaced at Cris. "I'll watch him, yo."

Cris was glad when Rude left. Even though he hadn't removed his sunglasses, she had the uncomfortable feeling that he had seen through her disguise. At least he hadn't said anything. The last thing she wanted was to return to being a girl in the presence of this cocky redhead who was unknowingly offering her a profile to admire, bangs piled above the sunglasses perched on his forehead, slightly pouting lips, a small silver hoop in his ear, a square jaw, the clean line of his throat and the hint of collarbones beneath the unbuttoned shirt collar.

"Have you found Elena?" she asked, pressing a bandage to her cheek and then ripping another one open for the burns on her forearms.

A slow smile of anticipation spread over his face. She'd just about forgotten her question when he answered it. "Yeah. We'll give them a taste of what the Turks can do, yo."


	25. Part V, Chapter 5

"I _know_ what the Turks can do," she spat, suddenly angry.

"Then you know what will happen if you don't do what I tell you," Reno shot back. He turned up the path, walking away from her.

"I lived in Sector Seven!" she called.

He stopped, and the sun slipped past one of Da-chao's peaks to comb through his fiery ponytail. He started to turn around, hesitated, and then did, his upswept eyebrows drawn together.

"Don't you get it?" she snapped after a full minute passed.

His eyes narrowed, whether against her or the sun she couldn't tell. And then an almighty ruckus exploded through the trees to her right. It sounded like a battle. Familiar snarling – Red XIII? Gunfire – that must be Vincent! With a little cry of relief, Cris darted forward, running toward her friends. Reno caught up to her in two strides, grabbed her shoulder, and pulled her off the path.

"What do you think you're doing, yo?" he hissed. "Just wait a moment. We've got it covered. Look there."

After leading her some way through the underbrush, he pointed.

"I don't care what you're doing so much as the idiotic way you're doing it," Vincent said coldly.

"Wait . . ." Corneo said, standing next to the carcass of a giant bird. Cris guessed Cloud had decapitated it. "Just wait a second!"

"Shut up!" Cloud yelled. He and the others stood cupped in the giant stone hand of one of Da-chao's deities, trapping Corneo on the fingertips. Elena and Yuffie were strung up on the statue's face, one over each closed eye. They all hung suspended over a dizzying drop to the valley below.

Corneo held up his hands. "Just listen to me – it won't take long. Why do you think a bad guy like me would swallow his pride and plead for his life?"

"Because he's clueless," Cris muttered, her fists tightening in her overlong sleeves.

"Easy, yo," Reno warned.

Cris ignored him. They had missed what Cloud said, but Corneo raised his hand and pressed something in it, and Elena's scream echoed through the mountains. She and Yuffie were now dangling by their ankles.

"Makes me so _mad_!" Yuffie hollered, squirming.

Cloud seemed paralyzed. He and the others weren't close enough to stop Corneo from carrying through on his threat.

"I guess I'm the one laughing last!" Corneo sang.

"No, that would be us," Reno called. He stepped forward, shoes kicking gravel off the path. Startled, Cris jumped after him, unwilling to be left alone.

Corneo's ridiculous laugh cut off. "What's going on? Who's there?"

Reno, with Cris in tow, walked out to the carved hand of the mountain, arriving at a different angle than Cloud to stand on the statue's thumb.

"The Turks!" Corneo choked.

Reno put his hands in his pockets. "You knew this was gonna happen ever since you leaked that secret. We're going to take care of you . . . personally."

"_Dammit_!" Corneo brandished the device. "Then they're all goin' with me!"

Right on cue, Rude appeared around the head of the statue. He chucked a sizeable rock, straight at Corneo's forehead. The rock hit with a wet smack.

"Good timing, Rude," Reno approved.

Corneo fell, but caught himself at the edge. He waggled there like a velvet fishing lure.

Rude straightened his sunglasses. "Let's get to work."

"All right, Corneo," Reno said jovially, jumping down to the end of the hand. Gently, he put his foot on Corneo's fingers. "This'll be over quick, so listen up. Why do you think we went to all the trouble of teaming up with those guys to get you?"

"Because you . . . were sure of victory?" Corneo gasped, sweat running down his face.

As if in a dream, Cris walked up next to Reno, staring down at this worthless man, who had degraded her, making her existence hell for two years. She would never thank Reno for setting the bomb in Sector Seven. But for this . . .

"All wrong," Reno said. He ground his foot into the hand beneath his shoe.

"No! Wait, sto –"

Corneo lost his grip, and his words garbled until they were a scream that went on and on. Reno watched until the end. "The correct answer was . . ."

"Because it's our job," Rude finished.

"Oh, thank you very much," Elena exclaimed fervently. Her normally sleek blonde hair was tangled and windblown. "I never expected you to come help."

"Elena, don't act so weak," Reno snapped. "You're a Turk!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Thank you," Cris breathed. She looked up at Reno, feeling a shock as his blue eyes met hers.

Rude said nothing. Just then, a phone rang.

"Yes, this is Reno . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . I'll get on it right away."

"Was that the company?" Elena asked from her awkward position.

"Yeah. They want us to find Cloud." Reno tucked his phone in his jacket.

"Are we on?" Rude asked.

"No," Reno said calmly. He combed his hand through his hair, as if thinking, and then said, "Today we're off duty."

Cris grinned. He looked good, standing there, outlined in the last rays of the sun.

"Hey," Yuffie howled, still wriggling. "Who cares about that? _Get me down_!"

All at once, it all came rushing back: The crash-landing on the plane, the anger when she discovered her missing materia, her frustration when she lost Cloud in the village, her crippling fear of Don Corneo, the violation. _Reno_, standing close enough to touch – and Cris flipped.

"_God damn you, Yuffie_!" she shouted, her voice reverberating around Da-chao. "This is all your fault! You can just stay up there forever! You almost got us _killed_!"

Cris hadn't realized how close she'd gotten to the edge in her ranting until her foot slipped. She squealed. When the arms locked around her middle, offering her something solid, she grabbed on and lurched backward into her rescuer.

"Whoops! I'm surprised you've managed to stay alive this long, yo," Reno laughed in her ear.


	26. Part VI, Chapter 1

Their feet were still sliding, threatening to dump them both over the cliff. Reno lifted her and retreated from the ledge, but in doing so, his arms hitched higher.

Cris struggled, trying to protect herself, but it was too late. He dropped her as if she'd puked on him, his blue eyes goggling. As quickly as she could, she yanked her shirts down, covering her stomach, and that was when he whipped her hat off her head.

Her hands flew to her hair, which tumbled around her shoulders in messy ringlets and snarls.

"You're a girl," he said.

She glared at him, furious tears standing in her eyes. "Give that back."

"But you're a _girl_, yo."

"And you are a colossal moron! Give it back!"

"Rude." Reno turned helplessly to his partner, offering the newsboy cap, but Rude and Vincent were busy releasing Elena and the voluble Yuffie.

"Thanks for finding her," Cloud said. He sounded like he was _laughing_.

Cris had never been shy. She grabbed her hat back. Reno was still openmouthed, at a loss for words. No wonder. That had probably been quite the unexpected handful of boobies.

Face burning, Cris burst out laughing, too. God, it was so ridiculous. It was over. Corneo was gone, Yuffie would return her materia, she was freaking starving, and the hottest guy she'd ever met had just felt her up. In the end, a very good day. All the way down the mountain, little fits of laughter burst from her like steam from a kettle.

"Have you lost your mind?" Yuffie grumbled.

"Yes," Cris sighed. She peeked over her shoulder, to the three Turks following them. Reno looked like he needed another drink, but when they reached Yuffie's house (where she'd apparently stashed the stolen materia), he nodded at Rude and Elena, who both continued down the road.

"Yo," he said. She stopped as everyone else filed into the house. "Cris, right?"

"Cristobel."

"What?"

"My name," she said quietly. "It's Cristobel Coleridge."

"Coleridge. I've heard that before." He rubbed the back of his neck, and then blinked. "Oh. The librarian."

"That was my father," she said acidly.

"Listen," he said, "don't blame the Chief. He had orders –"

"Don't." She hugged herself. "I don't want to hear that. Orders or not, that was my life Tseng took from me, and that _dilettante_ kept me a prisoner in a whorehouse for two years. And then there's you. Your orders killed my father."

He opened his mouth, but she kept going. "I'm not upset about that. The rest of it, but not that. He deserved what he got."

Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye and said, "You have orders now, don't you?"

"Tomorrow, the truce is over, yo." He really did have a nice voice when he was serious.

"I'll let them know," she said. Then, alone, she climbed the steps and entered the house, but she closed the door on the night and leaned wearily against it. She could hear Yuffie and the others moving around in the next room.

"Phew, perfect," Yuffie said. "Now the materia is back in its rightful place."

"Hey," Cloud said. "The placement of it is all messed up."

"Huh? Oh, it'll be all right. Don't be so picky! Anyways, that sure was close. No, normally I would kick their butts. Boom, bang!"

Cristobel smiled, and shook her head. Nothing got Yuffie down for long. Too bad she was feeling a bit squashed, herself. Cloud had a score to settle with Sephiroth, and she would help him see it through, just like the others. Which meant that the Turks, because they worked for President Rufus, were still enemies. All of them.

"That Corneo guy's a real pain," Yuffie said. "I'd rather deal with my dad than deal with that guy."

Vincent, Red XIII, and Cloud exited the room, nodding at Cristobel on the way by. She stepped back to let them leave the house first, and then waited. Yuffie was still talking, unaware that her audience had departed.

"At least, after all that, we got the materia back. Now come on everybody, let's continue our journey . . . Hey! Wait! Oh, all right. Here, I'll give this to you guys."

She charged out of the room, holding a blue materia high – the one she had stolen from Cristobel in the item shop. "Here, look, look! Come on, wait! No matter what anyone says, I'm going with you!"

"Relax," Cristobel said, grinning as she took the materia. "We've got to get back to the others tonight before they come looking for us."

Yuffie stayed quiet for all of five minutes before she turned to Cristobel.

"Oh, by the way, some of those guys from the Turks are good, huh?"

"Yeah," Cristobel said thoughtfully. "I guess they are."

They didn't run into any Turks again until they arrived at the Temple of the Ancients, and then it was only Tseng, half-dead from a face-off with Sephiroth. On Cait Sith's instructions, Cristobel, her hands shaking, pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed the first number listed, telling Ananda to come get him before she clapped it shut and hung up.

But that wasn't the worst of it. Aerith left them after Cloud gave the Black Materia to Sephiroth, and Cloud began to withdraw.

And then . . . Aerith died.

They stood together as a group on the edge of the pool in the Forgotten City, Yuffie sobbing into her shirt, Red XIII leaning against her hip, as Cloud walked into the water with Aerith cradled in his arms. She floated on the water's surface for just a moment, and then it closed over her face, and she was gone.

_It doesn't end,_ Cristobel realized. _Time keeps moving. It doesn't wait for love, or stop for death_. Then, _I need to be stronger, so I don't have to say good-bye to anyone else_.


	27. Part VI, Chapter 2

Cristobel debated for perhaps ten minutes.

Aerith, her friend, almost a big sister, was dead. It was up to her now to keep the magical balance in their battles, to shoulder Aerith's part, too.

She picked up Aerith's staff, rearranged the materia to her liking, and then defiantly faced Cloud with it. He said nothing.

Not a word.

Later, while they traveled further north, Cid taught her to fight with her chosen weapon, basic blocks, slashes, and stabs that he demonstrated with his spear. The fighting style between their weapons was slightly different, he said, cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, "But that'll getcha started all right."

Cristobel preferred to cast magic from the sidelines or the rear, but she had the option to defend herself physically now. She replaced her old fire materia with comet. She made use of support materia such as added cut, which would have been useless to her without the staff. She mugged. She learned more enemy skills. She summoned gods.

However, none of it mattered when they met Sephiroth in the Northern Crater.

She wasn't strong enough to stop Cloud. None of them were. Not even Tifa.

Without him, they struggled on, leaderless, disheartened. Cid's airship, the Highwind, was theirs now. It was so large that Cris could almost convince herself they were still on the ground, or, at worst, on a watership. From the Highwind's upper deck, where the cold wind and comforting the airsick Yuffie helped her deal with her own issues with flying, she stared unseeing at the threat of Meteor, hanging bloated and red with them in the sky, like a second, larger moon. The planet had perhaps a week left. Once Meteor struck, they were all dead.

As if that weren't bad enough, they found Cloud in Mideel, looking very small in a wheelchair.

"Mako poisoning," the clinic doctor told them. "Quite an advanced case. It appears this young man's been exposed to a high level of mako energy for a protracted period of time. He probably has no idea who or where he is now. Poor fellow, his voice doesn't even work. He is literally miles away from us."

It was the most horrible thing Cristobel had ever seen. Death was one thing. It was permanent, and with it came the crushing grief and the terrible longing, because they would never see Aerith again, hear her laugh, feel the warmth of her hands. But to see someone as headstrong as Cloud reduced to that wispy form in the wheelchair . . . Alive, but locked away behind broken blue-green eyes . . . She couldn't blame Tifa for losing heart, or for staying behind.

Gathered on the main deck of the Highwind with the others, Red XIII and Cristobel looked at each other. _Now what_?

"What're we gonna do now?" Barret unintentionally echoed, slamming his flesh fist on a teak railing. "What can _we_ do?" He turned, and caught Vincent's eye, and snapped, "An' don' go tellin' us to wait for Cloud to get better."

Vincent subsided into the high collar of his cloak.

Cait Sith perked up. "Oh, I've got some news."

"Yeah, what? That you a spy?" Barret's mood was quickly deteriorating as he worked himself into a temper.

"Yeah." The mog waddled up to Barret, and the little cat pointed at him with a dainty paw. "I've already told you I was."

Cait Sith's news had to do with the plans concocted by Scarlet and Heidegger to ram Meteor with Huge Materia, the same materia Scarlet hadn't found in the ruined Gongaga reactor. He let them eavesdrop on a high-level meeting in Shin-Ra's board room that his puppeteer was attending.

"We've already collected materia from Nibelheim," Heidegger's raspy voice said through Cait Sith's radio. "All that's left is Corel and Fort Condor. I've already dispatched troops to Corel."

"Corel!" Barret yelled, pain twisting his face at the mention of his hometown. "What else can they do to Corel? Can't let Shin-Ra get a hold of the Huge Materia! Besides, when Cloud gets back, I wanna show him this Huge Materia. He's gonna be shocked."

"So, what are you saying, Barret?" Cait Sith ran his paw over his ear. "Even though you're always knocking him, you really want Cloud to return."

"I ain't sayin' nothin' 'bout nothin'," he said with a scowl, but Cristobel was grinning. She knew better. "You just . . . shut your face! Every group's gotta have a leader. An' that's me! Or at least I wanna be, but I ain't cut out to be no leader. I never knew that till lately."

All of a sudden, a loud, sharp snore interrupted them. Cid, who had been dozing by the wheel, shook his head and stood up. "Wha? What's goin' on?"

"You been chosen to be the new leader," Barret announced.

If he expected the old man to be grateful, he was disappointed. Cid frowned. "Pain in the ass. Forget it."

Cristobel didn't realize it, but they were all getting closer to the two men at the front of the ship, creeping forward, hardly daring to hope that their purpose hadn't died with Aerith after all.

Barret forged ahead. "But for us to fight, we gotta have Highwind, and you. We need it to save the planet. An' who's runnin' this ship? You! That's why you're our new leader. Ain't no one else can."

Eventually, they wore him down, and Cid planted his fists on his hips, his feet shoulder-width apart, and told them all, "Okay, I'll do it! Everyone, follow me! We're headin' for the Corel Reactor."

"Hmmn," Cait Sith murmured, rubbing his furry chin.

"What is it?" Cristobel asked.

"The Huge Materia is at Corel, Fort Condor . . . I'm sure there was another place that had it. Where was that?"

"Why don't you just ask the Turks?" she joked. "I'm sure Heidegger is sending them for it anyway."


	28. Part VI, Chapter 3

She didn't expect Cait Sith to take her suggestion, but he must have. After they fought for and gained the two Huge Materia in Corel and Fort Condor, he advised them that the third piece was in Junon's underwater reactor.

They hadn't seen any of the Turks since Wutai. At this news about the underwater reactor, she drifted to Highwind's upper deck and wondered what Reno was doing, and if he thought about her at all.

That day, she stuffed the newsboy cap, ruined school shirt, and jacket into her old, worn-out backpack, combed out her curls, and applied a touch of mascara and lip gloss, the first makeup she'd worn in months. It felt weird, especially since she had no other clothes, but she left it. She didn't feel like hiding anymore.

Before they stormed Junon for the second time, Tifa returned to them, and brought an awakened Cloud, whose suppressed memories had been returned to him intact. He was like a whole different person; gone was all the cocky self-assuredness, the laughter and smiles and raring-to-go attitude. His shy manner of speech accentuated his indecision and self-doubt, as well as the self-loathing and grief, not just for Aerith, but for his late best friend, Zack – plus, this new Cloud got motion sickness as badly as Yuffie did. Cristobel found them talking together on one of the Highwind's catwalks.

"How would you even know?" the ninja groaned. "You don't know how tough it is . . . getting sick on boats and rides . . . So, please . . . just leave me alone."

"I really do understand, Yuffie," he murmured. He sounded so gentle, and terribly young. Unsure. Withdrawn. "When I get sick on a flight, it's a real killer."

"Oh. Isn't there any way to prevent this?"

"Well, according to my research . . ."

Yuffie clutched her stomach and her mouth. Cristobel retreated. Cloud spoke so rarely these days, and he never looked anyone in the eye anymore. He could still fight, though, was still the master of his giant sword, and was still determined to end the nightmare that was Sephiroth and Meteor, and so they all continued to support him.

Below Junon, in the depths of the ocean, a glass tunnel led four of them to the underwater reactor, but they didn't arrive in time to take the Huge Materia from it. A robotic arm slid the materia out of the reactor and they chased after it, their footsteps ringing on the catwalk. It led them to a pair of docks and two submarines, one red, and one silver.

And a tall, lanky redhead who, without turning around, said, "What are you doing? Help load."

Cristobel allowed herself one smile of delight – she was happy to see him – before she reminded herself that this was an enemy. This time, she didn't need rescuing. Engaging her steal materia, she streaked past Cid and Vincent and had her fingers on Reno's ring before he noticed any of them, but he wasn't a Turk for nothing. With lightning-quick reflexes, he grabbed her wrist. They stood there, frozen in her thwarted attempt to steal his accessory, astonishment and something else written all over his face. Cristobel grinned, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder, and so did he.

"Nice attitude," he said.

"Can't blame me for trying," she responded.

"Unfortunately, I don't have time to deal with you."

From behind Reno, between them and the red submarine, an oddly simian robot lumbered out of the shadows, pistons clanking and whirring.

"My priority is the Huge Materia!" With that, Reno yanked her sideways and the robot, a carry armor meant for heavy-duty loading, extended one of its articulated arms and latched its grip claw around her middle.

It lifted her high in the air, and Cristobel shrieked in pain and surprise and no small amount of fear (why the _hell_ couldn't she stay on the ground?), and in the ensuing chaos, Reno once again disappeared, heading for Upper Junon.

"Ow!" she yelled. Her own weight was going to break her in half. She raised her staff, but the armor's top half whirled around and the staff went flying out of her hands, clattering along the dock before it came to rest at the water's edge. "Help me!"

Vincent unloaded a few rounds into the carry armor, but that only served to make it amble toward him, Cristobel dangling in its claw like a toy. Its other grip claw closed on empty air as Vincent hid behind his swirling cloak and bounded out of reach. Cloud sailed in next, the huge sword over his head, and he brought it down on the arm holding Cristobel captive. The blade neatly separated the arm from the main body and she crashed to the dock, still trapped in the grip.

The world swam, and her middle was on fire. Amid more gunfire and ricocheting bullets, Cid ran over and chunked his spear's blade into the claw, prying it open, and she squirmed out of it gratefully.

Cristobel cast regen and big guard on them all, and then dove for her staff, which contained all of her offensive materia. Angrily, she unleashed a magical storm on the deranged carry armor, repeatedly pounding it with comet, flare, and ultima. Finally, she summoned NEO Bahamut and blew the robot to bits.

Cloud raised his head. "Damn! The submarine!"

The red sub was gone.

The next ten minutes were some of the most fun of Cristobel's life. She didn't like flying, but when Cloud commandeered the silver sub she gleefully clambered in after him. He had a sort of breakdown while inside the cockpit ("Someone . . . please. I'm sorry I can't take it anymore. The lack of space, the shaking, the roar of the engine . . ."), but she and Cid took control of it. They hunted down the red submarine, traversing the ocean's depths, avoiding mines, and sank the other sub with torpedoes.

The Huge Materia was theirs!


	29. Part VI, Chapter 4

"I want to investigate it."

"We're goin' to Rocket Town!"

Cristobel threw up her hands. "And what if there's something in that sunken Gelnika, Cid? It's one of Shin-Ra's cargo planes, just like the one that took the last Huge Materia to Rocket Town. I want to investigate it!"

"Goddammit, what the hell do they think they're gonna do to my rocket?" Cid viciously kicked the submarine's hull, and then stomped toward the waiting Highwind. "I'm outta here, Cloud! I'm gonna kick those damn Shin-Ra right out of my rocket!"

Cristobel, choosing some choice phrases from both Barret and Cid, swore at him, but he ignored her. She appealed to Cloud. "You saw it down there too, didn't you? We should investigate while we have the chance!"

"You heard Reno. Their priority is the Huge Materia. We're goin' to Rocket Town," he decided, staring at something past her left ear.

"We don't all have to go," Tifa said. "We'll split up and meet back here. I want to know why the airplane went down there, too."

Cristobel gave her a smile of pure gratitude. Red XIII expressed his curiosity to ride in the sub, and so he joined them. Yuffie flat refused and sequestered herself inside the Highwind.

"You all come back now, you hear?" Barret shouted over the roar of Highwind's engines.

Carefully, Cristobel piloted their stolen sub for the sunken Gelnika, keeping a wary eye out for the giant planet-borne monster traversing the ocean's depths – what the Shin-Ra were affectionately calling Emerald Weapon through their radios. When the sub's headlights swam over the crippled plane, they slid over the hull of a second silver sub already waiting outside.

"What is this place?" Red XIII asked, the fur around his shoulders standing up, his flaming tail swishing. He sniffed briefly at the sub's metal flooring, and advanced at a stalking pace into a side room. "Must be some kind of a research establishment because there's a mako generator."

They looted a few chests, battling fiercely through the unpleasant monsters that had made the sunken cargo plane their home, before they ran through an aft door.

Tifa pulled up short, her slender body ducking into her battle stance. "Turks!"

Two black-suited figures crouched at the far end of the room, amid the ceiling drips and floor puddles of cold seawater, working at removing the bulkhead plating.

"Again?" Rude sighed.

Reno chucked down his screwdriver and stood up indignantly. "We just seem to keep running into each other lately!"

"What are you doing here?" Cristobel asked.

"There were weapons and materia developed solely to destroy Sephiroth," Reno said after one of Rude's customary pauses, and then his partner took over.

"But, it was attacked by Weapon and sunk to the bottom of the sea."

Reno shook his head. "I can't give you what's here. We'll take out Sephiroth. I guess this is our last meeting."

"Really?" Cristobel pretended to think about it. "Guess we can't hold back then. There's nowhere for you to run this time."

"I won't let you get in our way," Rude said, more sharply than was usual for him.

With a howl that turned the room into the inside of a clock tower bell, Red XIII rushed Rude. The big Turk caught Red XIII's paws in his hands, twisted them, and slammed him into the deck. Tifa and Cristobel went after Reno while the other two wrestled with a sound like a pack of levrikons fighting over dinner. Tifa harried Reno with her fists, parrying the electro mag-rod, and Cristobel got in close enough to actually take his ring.

"Yo!" he cried, trying to push past Tifa, but she was having none of it and forced him back again.

"So what's this do?" Cristobel gloated, holding up the ring.

He was laughing. "You're fast, aren't you? It's a tough ring."

"Nice." It came from his littlest finger, and almost fit her thumb.

"That's mine, yo," he said, flinging an electropod attack at Tifa that sent her spinning into the tangle of Rude and Red XIII.

"Come and get it," Cristobel taunted.

"Tifa!" Red XIII roared. "Tifa, stop!"

Cristobel whipped around. Tifa seemed to be confused; she advanced on Red XIII while a bleeding Rude collected himself. Focused on her friends, she started to cast white wind, a skill learned from a zemzelett, to recover Tifa's senses and some of their collective health, but Reno struck at her. Instinctively, she brought up her staff.

Cristobel knew that, with her limited ability and experience, a fighter like Reno should be able to wipe the floor with her, but he did nothing more than keep her busy, as if he were a teacher putting her through her paces. Red XIII, squaring off with both a comrade and an enemy, wouldn't last long and needed her assistance. Reno's interference started to make her mad.

"Hey, I thought you told your partner over there not to go easy on us because we're girls," she grunted, and was rewarded with a thwack that made her fingers go numb. Then, he pushed her into the bulkhead, trapping her staff in such a way that it was useless to her.

"I might go even easier if you give me your number, yo," he said in a low voice.

"Oh, that's _real_ smooth," she mocked before his meaning sank in. "If you want the spy, you have to talk to the cat."

"Too bad. Maybe next time." He straightened. "Rude! Let's go."

With a last teasing grin that dared her to stop him, he left. Belatedly, Cristobel's heart picked up on what he'd asked and kicked into overdrive, but she cast the white wind spell on her friends as soon as she could. Tifa woozily straightened, laying apologetic hands on Red XIII, and then she looked up at Cristobel with horrified eyes and cried, "Are you all right?"

"Fine, are you okay?" Cristobel said quickly. Neither of her friends had noticed what had really happened with Reno.

_Next time_ . . . Meteor was still falling. Outer space had issued the planet a death sentence. Regret of a different kind uncurled in her middle.

_Will there be a next time_?


	30. Part VI, Chapter 5

As it turned out, President Rufus's time ran out before everyone else's.

Cloud and the others met Diamond Weapon outside of Midgar to stop it from rampaging through the city. It took all nine of them to hold it at bay. Rufus, who had relocated the sister ray cannon from Junon to the Shin-Ra Building, fired a shot that felled the monster, but not before the Weapon sent diamond flash through Midgar's skyline, which demolished the President's offices at the top of the building.

They heard it through Cait Sith, from his puppeteer.

"Looks like Cloud and the others are on their way. Stay out of the way!" Reeve said, obviously safe on a lower level of the skyscraper.

Heidegger's laughter burst through the cat's speakers. "The President is dead! Now I'm doing things my way!"

Meteor's feverish glow reached the atmosphere, and it began to rain on Midgar, a hot, acid downpour that scoured the sectors. Once again, Cristobel followed Cloud into the sewers, infiltrating the city despite Heidegger's martial law that locked down the upper streets, eventually making it to the train tunnels. Everyone split up, searching for a way to the sister ray to stop Hojo from reawakening Sephiroth.

"Oh no! They're here!" Elena's bright blonde hair shone in the dim tunnels, and she looked over her shoulder. "What are we going to do? I think it's okay for you to ignore your orders now."

Reno appeared, hands in his pockets, looking tired. His blue eyes flicked to Cristobel, standing by Yuffie, and then to Elena. "Elena, don't act so weak."

"We're Turks, Elena." Rude crossed his arms, leaning against a column.

"Yes, sir," she said quietly. "You're right."

Rude straightened. "Come on, we've got work to do."

Unconsciously, Cristobel stepped forward, her hand raised, but then she let it drop. There was nothing to say. Reno rubbed the back of his neck, his face unhappy.

"I'm not really up for it, but . . ."

"Our orders," Elena told Cloud crisply, "were to seek you out and . . . kill. Our company may be in turmoil, but an order's an order. That's the will and spirit of the Turks! Believe it!"

Rude glanced at his partner, but Reno was looking at Cristobel again. Were they regretting talking Elena into resuming their roles as enemies? How idiotic.

_Fall away_, Cristobel was thinking, waiting for the nothingness of shock to take her. _Why won't it all just go away_? She wanted to speak. She wanted to do something normal, like give him her cell number, to meet with a smile instead of with weapons. She wanted to stare at him forever. But the world remained agonizingly solid, and this wasn't going to end the way she wanted.

Tears built up in her eyes. _Idiot_.

"I know we've got a weird relationship," Reno said. To her. No one present could fail to miss it. "But we have to end this like Turks!"

It was just like her parents. Throwing her aside for their own selfish reasons. Damn the Turks to _hell_.

Cloud didn't draw his sword, and as the seconds passed Cristobel tore her gaze away from Reno. Cloud's blue-green eyes were troubled, his mouth set in a line.

"What are you doing!" Elena blustered. "Let's go!"

"No, let's not go," Cloud said his quiet voice.

Elena jumped. So did Cristobel.

"You're showing pity? Don't take the Turks for fools!"

"Wait, Elena," Reno said, but she wheeled on him in fury. Although she was so tiny, he actually backed up a step.

"Reno! You're not violating the order, are you?"

"Shin-Ra's finished," he said in complete seriousness.

Rude cleared his throat. Elena took in his impassive expression, then Reno's conflicted one. She turned her head away from both of them in disgust.

"Our mission's finished," Rude muttered. He put his hand on Elena's shoulder, and they walked away. Defeated, but proud. Professionals.

Reno grinned. He approached Cristobel, and she suddenly felt as full of light as the sun. He reached out, traced her lower lip with a fingertip. "Farewell. If we both survive . . . If we can save our lives . . ."

While Yuffie goggled at them, Reno leaned in to whisper, "I'll call."

And then he was gone.

"Oh my _gawd_," Yuffie exploded, rounding on Cristobel. "Do you _like_ him or something?"

For the first time, she found her friend's sense of humor badly timed. "Shut up."

"Well, it's not that I think there's anything _wrong_ with it," Yuffie backpedaled.

"She could do worse," Cloud said, and when both girls gawked at him, he turned shyly away.

Doomsday saw them on the Highwind, Scarlet and Heidegger dead, Hojo eliminated, Weapons vanquished, and Sephiroth, with all of his demons and hatred, at last put to rest by Cloud. But they had lost. Meteor was minutes away from impacting the planet, and the freed Holy was too late. In fact, it seemed to have joined forces with Meteor. As Red XIII pointed out, it was doing more damage than good.

"Then . . . we failed," Cristobel said. She began to cry in earnest. Gruffly, Barret pulled her into a one-armed hug.

For everyone to die after all they'd been through – it wasn't fair. For her to find feelings she thought she'd lost with Matt and to die without exploring them – it wasn't _fair_.

Barret's breath caught; Cristobel heard it through his shirt. "What the hell _is_ that?"

"Lifestream," Cloud said in wonder.

It was. The planet had decided to act at last, and called upon the Lifestream to save itself. Miles of green power undulated and converged like a tidal wave on Midgar, encompassing Holy and Meteor. To save them all.

A white light, so blinding it seared right through her skull, engulfed the Highwind. Her friends cried out, one by one, as the light stabbed them, too.

There, in the darkness of her own self, she saw Aerith smile.


	31. Part VII, Chapter 1

_"Farewell. If we both survive . . . If we can save our lives . . . I'll call."_

Two years was a long time to wait.

One morning, twenty-year-old Cristobel locked her apartment, fit buds in her ears, set the shuffle setting on her music, and jogged down the stairs. Outside, the sun crested the mountain walls behind the Ancient Forest, sending sharp-edged rays of gold and orange through Cosmo Canyon. She could actually see her breath this morning. Cosmo Canyon was generally a hot place, but it was high, and some winters saw snow. It looked as though this would be one of those winters.

Tightening the waistband string of her sweats with chilled fingers, Cristobel set off at a quick jog through the village, passing by the Cosmo Candle, the great bonfire that burned day and night. The people of Cosmo Canyon were really heroic – that day, two years ago, they had kept the Candle lit, and it had protected them.

The geostigma did not seem to affect any of the children here, and only five isolated cases had been reported among the adults, but the rest of the world, she knew, was suffering terribly.

It was Yuffie who had told them they weren't saying goodbye forever.

Cristobel found her rhythm. She ran every morning, but rather than run around the village, she beat a track in the bare canyons of red rock below it. Sometimes, Red XIII – or rather, Nanaki, as he asked her to call him – joined her, but he was sluggish on cold mornings.

She and Yuffie kept in touch, talking every week. The ninja princess was imparting her knowledge and skills to the youth of Wutai. Cid had gone back to Rocket Town, Vincent to Nibelheim (or so she thought – no one heard from Vincent). Barret traveled, searching for oil, convinced that a return to the old ways would bring the world out of its mako-deficient depression. Tifa opened a new bar, named 7th Heaven, in the city Edge, which had sprung up on the outskirts of the ruined Midgar. Last Cristobel had heard, Strife Delivery Service was still operating out of the rooms above the bar. Although, when she talked to Tifa last month, it seemed Cloud had disappeared.

_Typical_, Cristobel thought with a shake of her head. Cloud never really had recovered from the mind games played on him by Sephiroth. Poor Tifa; he might make her wait forever.

With these thoughts in her head, Cristobel topped the stairs on the way home from her run, feeling hungry.

"Cris!"

If she wasn't already breathing so hard from the exercise, she might have sighed. Instead, she slowed and waited for Samuel.

"Wanna go get breakfast?" he asked hopefully. He'd forgotten to brush his hair again, and the light brown spikes stuck up like wet cat fur.

She smiled. "Sure."

He brightened, launching into a discussion of his work, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his white lab coat – that explained his hair. He hadn't gone to sleep yet. Like Cid and Shera, Samuel was researching ways to manufacture old-fashioned fuel, because with the unreliability of steam-driven trucks, the fastest way to travel was by chocobo, and that wasn't fast enough to get the stricken children around the world to the doctors in Midgar.

She'd have to tell him soon. Samuel was a nice boy, thoughtful, smart, and sweet, the kind of good guy that should always have a girlfriend on his arm. For a while, she'd been happy to be that girl.

Problem was, he couldn't make her forget that other one. It wasn't fair to Samuel.

"I don't understand how the planet could punish us like this," Samuel said over his coffee cup in the Shildra Inn's tavern, referring to the geostigma.

As she had many times before, Cristobel relived that moment the planet awoke to destroy Meteor, and the bright white light that had seemed to go through them. In the days immediately following, hundreds of people succumbed to the sickness. She blinked, and put cold fingers against her forehead. "The Study of Planet Life says that the planet saw us, saw humans, as a threat as odious as Meteor. Bugenhagen said it, too, before he died. We might all be wiped out for what we've done to the planet with the mako reactors."

"I don't agree with that." His fist came down, inopportunely, on his fork, which flipped to the floor and made a mess of his eggs.

Used to his klutziness, she passed him a handful of napkins with a grin. "Until someone finds a cure, there's nothing we can do about it."

"You can't blame yourself," he said softly, squeezing her cold hands between his warmer ones.

Troubled, she looked down at her plate. Samuel knew part of what had brought her to Cosmo Canyon with Nanaki, knew that she'd fought alongside the Canyon's four-legged protector to save the planet, but he didn't know all of it.

For instance, he didn't know that she had killed people.

She withdrew her hand. "I should get going. I don't want to be late for work."

"Cris, wait." Samuel stood up, dug enough gil out of his pocket to cover their bill, stacked it neatly on the table, and hurried after her. "D'you want to do dinner tonight or something?"

"Samuel," she said as she stepped outside, and then hesitated. "No. I think . . . we need a little space, you and me."

His face fell, but he didn't ask why. He simply asked, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," she said sadly. And then, when he pulled her into a hug, she murmured into his sweater, "I'm so sorry."

A small voice, with diction too clear to be a child's, piped up and said, "I hate to interrupt, lassie, but there's a problem. You'll come, won't you?"

Nanaki stood outside of Shildra, wearing an expression of long-standing suffering. There, with tiny paws entwined in his mane, toy crown glinting in the morning sunlight, Cait Sith rode astride him as if he belonged there and lifted his black-and-white cat's face anxiously.


	32. Part VII, Chapter 2

While she dressed, pulling on her favorite jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, the stolen tough ring glinted at her from her dresser. She picked it up, and then put it down in favor of her hairbrush. But it was still there. She picked it up again, turning it over in her fingers.

She'd meant to return it to its owner, but he'd never called. Not once in two years.

Cloud needed her, Cait Sith said. President Rufus was alive, although stricken with geostigma. He'd sent the Turks to retrieve Jenova's head from the Northern Crater, and three remnants of Sephiroth were seeking it. Jenova. The original Catastrophe from the Skies, and Sephiroth, the nightmare. "We canna let the lad fight alone!"

To hell with it. She strung the ring on a chain and put it around her neck, where it rested between her breasts, under the shirt. It went to work there, close to her skin, raising her body's defenses and strength. Materia-laden staff in hand, she joined Cait Sith and Nanaki, and boarded Cid's new airship, the _Shera_. Vincent, Yuffie, and Barret were already aboard.

It was like they'd never been apart. When Cid piloted over Edge, they saw chaos: People panicking in the streets, felled by doglike monsters, and Tifa in the middle of the action. They took down the summoned god, Bahamut SIN, by putting all of their faith in Cloud. When Sephiroth returned, they watched from afar as Cloud ended the nightmare once and for all. It was over, again. Aerith, from beyond her death, offered them the cure to the geostigma. With the Lifestream, the planet saved its children, children it had never meant to harm.

There was a party in 7th Heaven that night, and against her better judgment, Cristobel got drunk. She couldn't help it. Not with Barret's booming jubilation, Cid's bottomless stomach, Tifa's drink-mixing skills, Cloud's experimental smile (something they had never truly seen before), and the fact that it seemed nobody was willing to stay sober alone.

She woke up with a headache.

Although she heard customers in the bar below her, she didn't see anyone upstairs. Groggily, she descended the steps, rubbing her sleeve into one eye.

"Morning, Tifa," she called as the other girl shuffled past her, rolling a fresh keg. "Need any help?"

"Have something to eat first," Tifa said, and pointed into the kitchen. "It's almost noon."

Cristobel's stomach came to life with a mean rumble. Gratefully, she sat down with a bowl of Tifa's soup and a few slices of fresh fruit. Then, a footstep sounded behind her.

"Cloud?" she asked, putting her spoon down before she turned around. She couldn't explain it, but she thought the person was a guy.

It was. But it wasn't Cloud.

Her chair clattered to the floor when she jumped to her feet. "How did you get in here? And what the hell do you want?"

"I came to talk to you," Tseng said calmly.

"You can't possibly have anything to –"

"About your father," he finished.

That shut her up. The leader of the Turks looked more mature than when she'd last seen him, although those dark, slanted eyes were the same. Around his head, a white bandage obscured the red chakra mark; Vincent had said something about that, about how Tseng and Elena had almost been killed by Kadaj and his gang. Or had it been Cloud who said it?

Tseng's eyes roved around the kitchen, one eyebrow hitching, as he said, "Taylor Coleridge is still alive. At that time, Shin-Ra notified all of its executives –"

"He wasn't an executive, he was a librarian –"

"He was promoted," Tseng said, his voice as sharp as knives, and she flinched. "Shin-Ra evacuated its executives from Sector Seven before the bomb was set. He has been living in employee housing in Sector Eight."

Cristobel's mouth dried out. "What?"

"In the last nine months," he went on, merciless, "large amounts of gil have vanished at an exorbitant rate through his department. It seems he did not learn his lesson the first time around, and he has not been as careful as before. Shin-Ra, Inc. cannot afford this type of drain on its reduced resources."

"Why are you telling me this?" she whispered, tears pouring down her face. Only the innocent had died in Sector Seven, it seemed. Dad wasn't dead. He'd sold her off and left her to rot. He'd let Mom kill herself. And now – Tseng was saying he was _guilty_ of the crime that had caused their misery. Her stomach churned, and she started to shake as rage and hatred boiled through her system. All those years ago, she'd believed him a coward. But he was much, much worse than that.

He was a greedy, pestilent _rat_.

"You were the one who let him go! Just because the President got his money, you let him go and you punished _me_! _I didn't do anything to any of you_! What the _hell_ could you possibly want from me now?" she screamed, feeling sixteen years old and scared all over again.

For the first time, Tseng's face gentled. "In light of the assistance you and your comrades gave us yesterday, the President would like to offer you the chance to witness his execution."

Although she heard him, she sagged against the table, hand over her mouth, struggling to get her emotions under control. Through her tear-filled eyes, she saw Tifa standing worriedly in the doorway to the kitchen, a dishtowel in her hands.

It was too much. Déjà vu roared in her ears. Cristobel started to sway.

Soundlessly, Tifa rushed forward, talking angrily at Tseng like a TV on mute, and then her arms closed around Cristobel. Comforting, lending strength.

"I'm all right," Cristobel said distantly. "I'm okay, really."

"Cris," Tifa started, but Cristobel shook her head.

"I'll go with you," she said to Tseng.

He pulled out his phone. "Reno, the chopper."


	33. Part VII, Chapter 3

All right, so she hadn't expected that.

She saw him when she climbed in the helicopter (after Tseng this time), glimpsed enough of his profile that a heavy weight settled in her chest, before she buckled herself into the seat behind him. When the helicopter lifted off the street, she squeezed her eyes shut, clutching the tough ring in her sweaty fist, but she managed to make it through the whole flight without dissolving in hysterics.

Most of Midgar had been abandoned, especially when Shin-Ra, Inc. moved out and the WRO (which was financially backed by Rufus Shinra in secret, who hoped to help undo the damage he and his company had caused to the planet, according to Cait Sith) focused its efforts on the new city of Edge. But it seemed that not everyone had left.

Cristobel hopped down from the helicopter on wobbly legs and looked around.

The top of the plate had fared worse than the slums below it. Meteor and Holy had not been kind.

The rotors slowly spun down, and silence rushed in to fill the space. Tseng was still inside, talking to Rude, who she hadn't seen before now. But of course he was there. Reno never went anywhere without him.

Reno took off his headset and climbed down next, saying something to Rude she didn't hear. His vivid ponytail, she noticed, was a little longer than before, reaching mid-back, but nothing much else had changed. The high, aristocratic cheekbones, the red tattoos, the thick eyelashes. Shapely eyes as blue as the clear skies above Cosmo Canyon. Ultra-expressive mouth. Long, lean body beneath the casual suit.

Damn it all. She barely knew him. She had a life that didn't involve him. She was a young, self-sufficient woman. So why did he have to hurt her so much just by existing?

"Let's go." Tseng strode past her.

Ducking her head, Cristobel hurried after him. Her father, naturally, lived thirteen stories up in an apartment building that was missing its top five floors. It stank in the hallway like the sewers below the city, and a patch marked her father's front door, where it looked like someone had tried to kick it in. Inside, he was waiting for them, sitting in his armchair, with a shotgun propped across his knees. The geostigma marked his jaw and neck in ugly, black, suppurating boils; for whatever reason, he had not bathed in the Lifestream rain yesterday.

When he saw her walk in between the two tall forms of the Turks, his face grayed to match his suit, but he recovered swiftly.

"Cris!" he choked. Stumbled to his feet. Kept his grip on the shotgun. "Thank God, you're alive! Honey, I've missed you so much!"

Reno didn't let him get far. With a few classic karate-style punches, he wrested the shotgun from her father's hands and laid him out on the floor with a bloody nose. The Turk's face, which wore goofy grins so well, was downright frightening.

"Cris," her father panted, lifting himself. "Honey, don't let them do this to your old dad. It's all lies –"

The sharp snap of the gun as Reno pointedly unloaded it stopped him. Cristobel scrutinized the room, taking in the nice furniture, the barricaded windows, the boxes and chests stacked haphazardly against the walls, the computer setup humming quietly in the corner. She'd been in enough dives and thieves' dens in her travels that she could recognize one when she saw it.

"_This_ was more important to you than either Mom or me?" she asked in a shaking voice.

"Don't talk like you know anything," he spat, suddenly angry. "She was your mother but she was my _wife_."

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. "You weren't even willing to leave this to cure the geostigma?"

"There are people out there who would take everything I have if I turn my back for a second. Do you think these two men are any more pure? They're murderers, Cris. They would have killed me, and you would be dead by now, too."

"_I_ am a murderer, Dad," she said. "Because of you. How do you think I got out of the whorehouse? I killed my keeper. And I am _this close_ to killing you, too."

Once again, Tseng pulled out his gun. "I have my orders, Mr. Coleridge, from the President."

She felt sick. How did her father's actions reflect on her? Cristobel's gaze moved from the cringing man on the floor to Reno. His face was unhappy, the way it had been two years ago in the train tunnels.

"Wait," she said. "Don't kill him. Please."

The black-haired Turk raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Oh, honey, I knew you wouldn't let them do it . . ."

"Take him to the slums and leave him there," she added, disgust twisting her features, and her father grimaced as if he'd just swallowed his tongue. "If his money is so important to him, let him live the rest of his miserable, diseased life without it."

In a flash, Tseng had his phone out and dialing. He spoke, listened, and then snapped the phone closed. "That will be acceptable."

"You can't do this to me, girl! I am your father!" Taylor Coleridge screamed. He surged toward her, hands outstretched as if he intended to strangle her, but she saw the glint of a derringer in his blackened hand. Two shots rang out, excruciatingly close to her ear, and ragged, shiny red flowers bloomed in his gray skin, one in his temple, and the other just above his left eye.

Unable to stand there any longer, Cristobel turned on her heel and bolted from the room before his corpse hit the carpet. She reached the elevators and punched the button with her fist. Then, she slumped over, pressing the top of her head into the wall, as she battled with the urge to vomit.

Tseng had eliminated her father, as he was hired to do four years ago.

And she was finally free.


	34. Part VII, Chapter 4

"Whoops, take it easy," Reno murmured, putting a hand under her elbow. He ushered her into the elevator, but she jerked out of his grip and he retreated to the other side of the car, which rocked gently.

Oh. Oh no. She hated elevators, and this one seemed less stable than most.

"Cristobel."

It was the first time he'd called her by name. Yikes. Hunching her shoulders, she hugged herself. No one else called her that; the only name she gave her friends, all the way up to Samuel, was Cris. Short. Easy to remember. And it kept them all at a safe distance from her darker side. Tonelessly, she said, "You're alive, I see."

He understood, and had the intelligence to look ashamed. "Atonement is the duty of those who survive."

"What?" If the past was any indication, nothing that logical should ever have come out of his mouth, although, he looked pretty cool when he said it. "You did not come up with that on your own."

"It's what Rude told me."

She giggled. _Damn_. "And what does it mean?" she asked as coldly as she could.

"I know what I did," he sighed, rubbing his neck, "for Shin-Ra. We almost destroyed the world, yo. The President – we want to make it right."

"Oh, so that's why you never called. You were too busy." It was out before she thought to stop it, and she sounded weak and hurt. Damn it all to _hell_.

He made an inarticulate noise of frustration, or dispute, and took two steps toward her.

The elevator car lurched, slamming her backward into the wall. She could actually feel her face go cold when all the blood drained out of it.

"Are you all right, yo?" he asked, sounding startled. He stepped forward, passing the halfway point. She screamed and he froze. "What's wrong?"

"Step back," she whispered through numb lips. Each time he moved, the elevator creaked and rocked. "Oh, my God."

"Are you scared?"

"No."

He stepped forward again, teasingly. The floor beneath her feet slanted like a seesaw.

"Yes!" she squealed, plastered to the wall. "_Yes_, okay? Stop it! It's going to fall!"

"No, it isn't," he disagreed. He walked right up to her, putting a hand on either side of her head. Trapping her. The overstressed cables groaned.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shrieked, pushing him futilely in the chest. He was a lot bigger and stronger than she was. "Go back! Get back on your side!"

"Don't worry, yo. Everything's fine."

Tears of terror poured down her face.

"Look at me."

She shook her head violently, hiccupping.

"I'm right here," he said softly. His voice drew her eyes like a magnet. So close. She was going to drown in the blue of his eyes. And then he said, "If you're scared, then kiss me."

Her brain actually misfired, coughed, and rebooted. "_What_?"

"Kiss me," he repeated. "Nothing is going to happen to you. I'm right here."

"Reno, please just go back to the other side," she said in a strangled voice.

"Kiss me."

Her breathing accelerated; God, she was hyperventilating, and they were going to die. Her eyes darted upward, to the lighted panel above the doors. The elevator was still making its slow, labored way down, but it was only on floor four. She had no intention of doing anything until she was out of this death trap. So, while she was distracted, _he_ kissed _her_.

Stupid, cocky _Turk_!

When the elevator's doors whined open, Cristobel staggered out, turned, and socked Reno full in the mouth. She didn't have Tifa's talent, or her materia, so it couldn't have hurt him. His sunglasses flew off his head, though, and shattered on the lobby's tiled floor, which gave her a perverse satisfaction. Laughing unconcernedly, he hooked the necklace chain out of her shirt with one finger, and his ring dangled guiltily at the end of it.

"Thought about me, have you?" he said, devilishly.

"Let go, you jerk!" That time, she slapped his hand away. Her cheeks were burning. "You could have called, but you never did!"

"I didn't have your number, yo," he pointed out, frowning at her.

"You let that stop you?" she yelled. "Are you a Turk, or not? You could have gotten it!"

"Of course I could have," he said, nettled at last. "I didn't think you wanted anything to do with me. I'm the one who destroyed Sector Seven. I knew that your father was still alive. So you tell me. What right did I have to talk to you?"

"Every right," she said angrily. "I'm the same as you. The lives I've taken in the name of saving the planet will never come back, but I don't want to hide from it. It's part of me, and always will be. Who else could understand that but you?"

"Then what's the problem, yo?" He pouted.

"God, you are such a moron!"

Scrubbing her face dry on her sleeve, she fumbled for the chain's clasp with the idea of giving his stupid ring back and going home. She fully intended to continue shouting, to really let him have it for making her wait so Goddamn long, but the ability to focus had never been one of his strong points. Her tirade broke off before it started when he kissed her again, his fingers entangling in her hair.

A loud ring vibrated out of her back pocket, scaring her. She dug out her phone, flipped it open, and barked, "What?"

His laughter, that sexy, genuine laugh, was so distracting that she shoved away from him and ran to the front doors. "Sorry, hello, what?" she said breathlessly.

"I _said_, what happened? You've been gone for _ages_."

"It's fine, Yuffie, everything's fine, I swear."

"Well, we're getting ready to go!"

"That's okay, I think I can get another ride home . . ." Cristobel trailed off, staring across the lobby at Reno.

Yuffie snickered and said in a stage whisper, "It's about time. Let me know how it goes!"


	35. Part VII, Chapter 5

_**A/N:** All right, Dear Readers, at the risk of ruining this chapter, a **warning:** There are lemons.  
_

* * *

Snow blanketed Cosmo Canyon, falling fast in fat flakes. It was so lovely that, for just a moment, Cristobel's fear of the helicopter diminished, and she watched in delight as they touched down in a flurry of white. Shallow drifts built up on the steps leading to the village.

Reno squinted out the windshield, too, but he frowned. "Shouldn't fly in this, yo."

"Were you thinking of going back right away?" she asked, a little wistfully – but not really surprised. He had, after all, left Rude and Tseng to . . . take care of her father and the stolen gil without him.

"Not much I can do about it now," he said with a shrug, took off the headset, and brushed his fingers through his bangs. Without his sunglasses, his hair constantly fell in his eyes. Then, he grinned at her. "I'm hungry, yo. Any place good to eat in this town?"

There was only one restaurant – the Shildra Inn's dining room, where she and Samuel had eaten breakfast (yesterday, though it seemed like forever ago). She and Reno sprinted through the snowstorm, heads down, the cold air searing her throat, the snow soaking through her shirt. They weren't the only ones, either. With night coming on, many of Cosmo Canyon's residents flocked to the inn, standing and talking in the lobby with dripping hair and clothes. Every table was full in the dim restaurant, the heat and light from the large fireplace at the far end not quite reaching Cristobel at the door.

Or maybe the chill came from the people around them, who looked at Reno and edged away. _A Turk_, their faces said. _What's a Turk doing here_?

Reno, busy scrubbing snowflakes off his head and jacket, didn't seem to notice. In fact, she caught his eye so often she wondered if he was just as distracted by her as she was by him.

Nice thought.

"Miss Coleridge!"

She turned around and four or five girls mobbed her, talking and laughing all at once. "Where have you been?" they asked, hugging her. "We've missed you!"

More than one of them eyed Reno with interest over Cristobel's shoulder, and she started to giggle. The Cosmo Canyon High cheerleading squad was made up of girls not much younger than she. They wouldn't care if someone as good-looking as Reno were a Turk or a bus driver. She knew she'd have some explaining to do later.

"Just had something to take care of," she said evasively. "Family stuff."

"You'll be back on Monday, right?" a brunette asked.

"Definitely."

"See you then!" they chorused, pushing into the restaurant and their table with shrieks and laughter.

"What was that?" Reno asked, smoothing the spikes of his vivid hair.

The line inched forward, considerably quieter with the cheerleaders gone. "I never graduated high school, you know? I was sixteen when Tseng came."

His hand sought the back of his neck, and he looked at the ground.

"It's not that big of a deal," she said, blowing on her cold hands. "I'm doing a work-study program with the high school. I coach the cheerleading squad during the day, and complete coursework at night. It's a pretty good deal. I should get my diploma this spring."

"What will you do after?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. I like coaching. I used to be a cheerleader. It was something I really loved doing. Might just keep this job for a few years. They're good kids." With the toe of her boot, she kicked apart a pile of slushy, melting snow. "What about you?"

He didn't answer for so long she was afraid this strange relationship was going to end before it got started, but then he said, "Do you really want to know?"

"Yeah," she answered. The couple ahead of them followed the hostess. "I want to know where you'll go when you leave. If you'll come back. If everything that's happened to the world is going to happen again."

"Turks are returning to the President," he said. "All of them, yo. There's work to do. We won't let our nightmares take over."

She smiled faintly. Yes, that sounded about right. Cloud, Barret, Cid – everyone, they'd all said that, too.

A couple of hours and drinks later, she walked up to her apartment door, but the thought of saying goodnight – goodbye – made her voice freeze up in her throat. Instead, she unlocked the door. But she didn't open it. He touched her shoulder. She looked up at him.

He leaned in slowly, giving her time to get away if she wanted. She didn't want to. Her head swam as she breathed him in. Tendrils of his red-dyed hair were in her face. She let her lips part, and his tongue flicked across them; a question and a promise. And then, knowing exactly what she wanted, she thrust one hand behind her, slapping blindly for the doorknob. She found it, twisted it, and they stumbled together across the threshold.

"Whoops." He chuckled.

They collided with her kitchen table, and his arms tightened around her to keep her from collapsing. She giggled, and he kicked her door shut. It was pitch black in her apartment.

It didn't matter. Her hands were busy, her lips, teeth, and tongue. The skin of his chest and stomach met her fingertips, warm, smooth, scarred, and taut. He shivered under her touch. His mouth left tingling trails along the line of her jaw, down her neck to her shoulder. She led him further into the apartment, to the single bedroom.

Reno lowered her to the blankets and she forgot everything else except for the feel of him: heat-weight-fingertips-lips, a knee that nudged her legs apart, lips-fingertips-weight-heat, sweat on her tongue and a satisfied sigh in her ear, and then moving, moving, moving inside of her.

Her voice broke into the dark. She let it – Reno seemed to like to listen to her. His kisses gentled, giving her time to breathe, his thumbs caressed her temples, long hands framing her face, his strokes slowing, reaching deeper.

Sweet . . .

. . . so sweet.


	36. A Few More Words

Morning over the Ancient Forest and Cosmo Canyon sparkled like the sea, white and blue. Cristobel stepped onto her balcony, sliding the door behind her closed as quietly as she could, feeling the biting winter chill on her skin and the sun-warmed boards beneath her bare feet. Her coffee sent a curl of steam into the crisp air.

The unobstructed view from the balcony was one of the reasons she'd taken this apartment. It was so beautiful, all year. Not a trace of humankind to be seen.

"Yo." Reno joined her not long after, squinting in the sunlight. He held up a steaming mug. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. I'm glad you found it."

He hadn't left in the night. She'd expected him to. But here he was, brushing curls to the side so he could kiss her neck, tucking a finger under the shoulder strap of her camisole. She smiled, leaning into his touch. "I never expected a Turk to live a normal life," she teased. "I thought you all slept in coffins."

His laughter tickled. "I like to have fun outside of work, yo. It just doesn't happen often –"

A loud buzz cut him off.

Cristobel grabbed her phone off the balcony railing and flipped it open.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"It's Yuffie. The most annoying best friend in the world." She grinned. "I forgot. She wants to know how it went."

"How what went?"

In reply, Cristobel raised the phone and snapped a picture of him. A shirtless, uncombed, sleepy picture of him.

"That should answer her question," she said.

"Yo, wait a second!" The mug was in real danger. Reno snatched for the phone. "Don't send that!"

She held the phone behind her, but his arms were longer and he almost had it. Pushed against the wall, she squirmed, laughing. And then – instead of fighting for the phone, they were kissing, their coffee spilled across the balcony floor, dripping to the balcony below. He yanked her closer, raking one hand down her back to settle it in the curve of her spine. His other hand closed over hers, subsequently closing the phone.

"I still don't have your number," he said against her lips, sending a thrill of a different kind through her system.

"Look it up," she said, and was rewarded with a growl.

Shin-Ra, Inc. did eventually intrude, and the rest of the weekend passed in a lonely, anticlimactic sort of way. She went for her runs. She put Samuel and Shera in contact with each other. And on Monday, she returned to work and explained to the school's principal that she'd attended her father's funeral and it had all been very sudden – the geostigma, of course.

Her life belonged to her, and no one else. Just the way she wanted it.

But she thought of Reno so much, wondering what he was doing, if he thought of her. She sat down for lunch that day, lost in a reverie.

Her phone rang.

* * *

_**A/N:** _

_It was not the intention of this work to retell the entire game storyline, but rather to supplement it. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to dabble in the world of Gaea. Aside from this epilogue, "Sounding the Crystal Bell" consists of seven chapters, in honor of the day Cloud left Nibelheim seven years before the start of FFVII, and each chapter consists of five scenes, in honor of the day Sephiroth destroyed the town of Nibelheim five years before the start of FFVII._

_Now it's time for a few acknowledgments._

_First and foremost, to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with apologies._

_Thanks go to Little Chiba and Yinza for providing the game script online._

_Thanks go to my fantastic reviewers for the compliments, encouragement, and all-around smiles their comments have granted me: **Jasubee**, **Daydreamer Demon**, **azaleacroncs**, **Katie**, **FinalFanCrazy12p3**, and **heavenslilagl420**. Also, **Queen Baka**, **Sololight**, **Piper-Knight**, **Blue Fire Lily**, **notfromearth7**, and** .everyonepanic.**._

_Special thanks go to **Darwin**, because she is my real-life friend and had a lot to listen to from one insecure author writing her very first fanfic._

_ 1/23/2010 – 2/23/2010_


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